Ward, James (1851–1924), artist and educator, was born 17 November 1851 at Gavins Buildings, Shankill Road, Belfast, eldest son of James Ward, house painter. He was educated at local schools and received private art lessons before attending the Government School of Art, Belfast. He studied on a scholarship at the Royal College of Art, South Kensington, London (1873–6). For ten years he assisted in the decoration of the Museum of Ornamental Art (latterly Victoria and Albert Museum), South Kensington, firstly as assistant (1876–8) to Sir Edward Poynter, museum director, on ornamental decoration of the lecture theatre, secondly as assistant (1878–86) to Sir Frederick (later Lord) Leighton, president of the Royal Academy, on the two great south court murals: ‘Arts of industry as applied to war’ and ‘Arts of industry as applied to peace’. On these latter large semi-circular lunettes, he was charged with painting the undercoat and the whole of the architectural and other accessories. Execution in the experimental spirit-fresco technique proved but a mixed success, requiring Ward's return in latter years to undertake restoration. Leighton's style – a cosmopolitan academic neo-classicism – and his ideas on art and culture exerted a lasting influence. Appointed secretary and director of evening art classes at the newly established Barnes Institute (1880), Ward exhibited works at the Royal Academy and elsewhere in various decorative media and designed textiles for production. As headmaster (1888–1907) of Macclesfield School of Art, he concentrated the curriculum on design, introducing classes in flower painting and sketching from nature al fresco. He served a time (from 1893) as art master at Battersea Polytechnic Institute, and fulfilled a government commission to report on continental art and technical schools (published 1895).
Appointed head of the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art (1907–18) (later the National College of Art and Design), he consolidated initiatives undertaken by predecessors in the applied arts and design. He established classes in woodcarving and – his foremost innovation – mural painting, and encouraged the already thriving classes in stained glass, metal-and-enamel, and mosaic. While securing for the school an international reputation for craft work, in matters of style his imposition of conservative Victorian academism, dating to his tutelage under Leighton, was resented by the more adventurous students. A leading figure in the vigorous Irish arts and crafts movement – a phenomenon with links to the contemporary cooperative and self-help movements – he was named to the council of the newly reconstituted Arts and Crafts Society of Ireland and was among thirteen inaugural members of the society's Guild of Irish Art-Workers (1909). From 1914 to 1919, assisted by senior pupils, he painted a series of twelve murals in the spirit-fresco medium (applied directly to the stone ground) in the rotunda of Dublin City Hall, depicting, in a conservative Leightonesque mode, scenes from the legend and early history of the city and the heraldic arms of the four provinces. Restored in 1968, they are the most prominent surviving specimens of his work. During his years in Dublin, Ward exhibited paintings in other media and genres, notably landscapes. Drawing in part on lectures at his several teaching appointments, he published from 1890 to 1921 some nine art textbooks treating such topics as ornament, decorative design, and fresco, most notably History and methods of ancient and modern painting (4 vols, 1913–21). Utilised throughout Britain and internationally by schools, instructors, and working decorators, the books established for him a widespread recognition.
Ward married Elizabeth Ham of London; they had four sons and four daughters. He retired (1918) to Newburn, Berkshire. In 1920 he emigrated to Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) to join a married daughter, where he worked on landscapes and genre scenes of rural black African life. He died 18 May 1924 and was buried on his son-in-law's farm at Lemon Kop, Melsetter.