2003 Honored Artist
James Bama
The Buffalo Bill Art Show & Sale launched a new tradition this
year by naming its first annual Honored Artist. 
In selecting James Bama as the 2003 recipient, the
show recognizes an artist who has been intimately associated with
Cody Country and its people for almost three decades. As Bama sees
it, the award honors Cody Country as much as it honors his own life’s
work.
"Everything I’ve done - the rodeo, the
trappers, the mountain men - has been done around here," he
says. "The fact that I’m from Cody makes this very significant
to me. They’re really honoring Cody, and the Buffalo Bill
Historical Center."
Born in Manhattan in 1926, the young Bama was fascinated
by the artwork he saw in comic strips such as Tarzan and Flash Gordon
and he began to draw. He attended art school in New York, and worked
for 15 years with the Charles E. Cooper Studio - the top illustration
house in the country at the time - painting dozens of magazine ads,
movie posters and paperback covers.
After a vacation to Wyoming in 1966, Jim and his
wife Lynne decided to move to the West, where he turned his attention
to painting its "real" people and places. He considers
himself an "American realist" who has painted nearly every
imaginable subject.
"I never came out here with the idea to be
a Western artist," Bama says. "It just happened - and
that’s the way it should be."
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