James BAMA ✿

James Elliott Bama (1926) is an American artist known for his realistic paintings and etchings of Western subjects.

As a child, Bama loved the comic strips of Flash Gordon and Tarzan, and knew even then he wanted to be an artist. After graduating from the High School of Music and Art in New York City, he studied drawing and anatomy at the Art Students League before launching his career with the Charles E. Cooper Studios in New York City in 1951.

In an extremely successful twenty-two year career as a commercial artist, he produced book covers, movie posters and illustrations for such notable magazines as Saturday Evening Post, Argosy and Reader's Digest . In 1968, Bama moved to Wyoming to pursue his love for portraying contemporary Western subjects, saying goodbye to his career as an illustrator.