James Coe is an artist with a passion for birds, nature and our rural heritage. Jim grew up in the suburbs of New York City and was captivated by the shorebirds he saw in nearby marshes and inlets. He studied biology at Harvard and later received a master’s degree in painting from Parson’s School of Design.

Jim began his art career in illustration and is best known as the author and illustrator of the acclaimed Golden Field Guide Eastern Birds. After spending 15 years painting bird identification plates, Jim stepped back across the divide into the world of ‘fine’ art, to crate landscapes in plein air. Today his oil paintings combine his love of the landscape with a finely detailed knowledge of natural history. In his canvases that incorporate birds, Jim’s goal is to introduce an element of movement, color, or interest to the scene. The species included is typically a bird he heard or saw while on location, painting a study.

Jim was honored in 2011 as Master Wildlife Artist by the Woodson Art Museum. He is represented in the permanent collections of the New York State Museum, Museum of American Bird Art at Mass Audubon, Hiram Blauvelt and Woodson Art Museums, and the Bell Museum of Natural History. Jim was the subject of a feature in the September 2017 issue of Harvard Magazine.  His work has been featured also in Wildlife Art, American Art Collector, and Plein Air magazine. His paintings have appeared on the covers of Sanctuary, Bird Watcher’s Digest, Birding World, and The Auk, professional journal of the American Ornithologist’s Union.  

Jim lives with his wife Karen in Hudson Valley, not far from Albany, NY. He maintains a studio in their restored farmhouse, and enjoys the quiet and beauty of the surrounding woodlands and gardens.