James Bama
1926 – 2022

BORN IN
New York City
KNOWN FOR
Western-subject painting, magazine illustration
A native New Yorker, James Bama created photo-real figures and paintings that capture the old “wild west.” He kept a studio from where he converted his many photographs into paintings whose surfaces are so smooth and satiny that some people refer to him as the “Vermeer of the West”.
He graduated from New York City’s High School of Music and Arts and then served in the military for three years. He attended the Art Students League and became a renowned illustrator in New York, working for Saturday Evening Post, Argosy, and Reader’s Digest. He also did over sixty book covers for Doc Savage books of Bantam Press.