Featured this month is one of a set of five new 'birdscape' paintings that are just now on their way over to the UK for the Society of Wildlife Artists annual show The Natural Eye, which opens on September 30 at the storied Mall Galleries in downtown London.   

This is my third year exhibiting as a member of the SWLA, an organization based in England, but with members from throughout Europe. Only a handful of American wildlife artists are part of the group, and I am proud to count myself among them. 

The challenge each summer, as I prepare a new series of works for this exhibit, is to conceive of paintings that recall past field experiences with European bird species from just a few trips overseas. The SWLA values direct field observation above all other source material for their members' artwork.  I am at an obvious disadvantage, because I am most familiar with bird life here at home. But I have been birdwatching and creating artwork based those birding experiences now for more than fifty years. Amazingly, I can vividly recall field experiences from photo references taken even many years ago. 

Down below is another one of the new SWLA paintings on its way to London.  This one is derived from photographs taken on an epic mid-seabird-nesting season trip to the Orkney Islands of Scotland, back in 2023. 

  Puffin Near its Burrow, oil/linen mounted on board, 14x21 

NEWS

July 2025 Interview for Beakuency:  

In early July 2025 I was interviewed at my studio by artist and local radio personality Mayuko Fujino.  Our conversation - both in audio and transcript -  are available at following link

 Jim Coe, Landscape Painter:

Capturing the Magical Moments Shared with Birds

 In the studio making a point about  Spring Along the Edge of the Pond

   photo by Mayuko Fujino

Icebound, oil on linen, 20x24

Depth of Winter receives the Charles Movalli Award for Excellence in Painting at HVAA 90th Annual Juried Exhibition

Depth of Winter, oil/linen, 17 x 27.75

Merganser in the Snow wins Hiram Blauvelt Art Museum Purchase Award!

Merganser in the Snow, oil/linen on board, 11x18

I am excited to share the news that my smaller version of this motif, Merganser in the Snow,  which had been on tour through 2022 with the Society of Animal Artists Annual "Art and the Animal," has been acquired by the Hiram Blauvelt Art Museum of Oradell, NJ for their select and prestigious collection of wildlife art. 

Three Acquisitions in Four Years!

Summer Evening Along the Creek purchased by the Woodson Art Museum, 2024

Snow on the Hayfields is acquired by the Woodson Museum from "Birds in Art, 2022"

Summer Evening Along the Creek,  oil/linen, 16x24

   Snowy on the Hayfields, oil/linen, 22x40

Snowy Passage  receives Award of Excellence and is acquired by the Woodson Museum.

Snowy Passage, oil/linen, 22x40

 Exciting news: my recent canvas Snowy Passage, which was included in this year's "Birds in Art" annual at the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum in Wausau, WI, was acquired by the Museum for its permanent collection.  I am proud to say that this is the third large canvas purchased by the Woodson. 

Subsequently, the same painting was accepted into the NOAPS  (National Oil and Acrylic Painters' Society)  "Fall International Online Exhibition" and received one of the coveted Awards of Excellence.  

I am thrilled with both bits of news. Snowy Passage is one of my all-time favorite paintings. It combines two of my favorite things to paint: snow and a drake Hooded Merganser!

Artist Support Pledge

During the past year of the pandemic, while we were all locked-down at home and art galleries were shuttered, an artist from the UK, Matthew Burrows, conceived of a brilliant program that would allow artists to continue to work while also supporting one another with sales of small inexpensive artworks.

The initiative has been a huge success and has demonstrated that the arts community worldwide is an extended network of like-minded generous and creative people.

The way the initiative works is simple:  each participating artist posts images of available artwork on Instagram, tagged with the hashtag #artistsupportpledge, and priced to sell for no more than $200.  Whenever 5 works have sold - or the participant's sales have reached $1000 - then that artist promises to buy another artist's work for the same $200.  (£200 in the UK;  €200 elsewhere in Europe).

Starting last April and continuing into this past January, I was posting sets of new small oil paintings on paper every week and offering them through the Artist Support Pledge.  In those months, I painted 134 of them and sold more than 95% of my offerings.  What a wonderful response!  It helped me work through a difficult period for us all.  I loved being able to make my work more readily accessible to friends, colleagues, former school classmates and neighbors.  Even more fun, I was able to purchase nearly 20 paintings from talented colleagues.  I made new artist friends on both sides of the Atlantic.

I have taken a break from the Pledge for now but may resume later in the year.  There are still several of this series of paintings available at the special price of just $200 unframed, plus $10 shipping in the USA.    Click HERE to see full album of all 134 ASP paintings, including those still for sale.  Use the 'contact the artist' form here if you see one you would like to buy, or send an email to [email protected]. 

And please, everyone, stay safe. Get your vaccine. Wear your mask. Be thoughtful and considerate of others, and most importantly, be kind.

Three of my many Artist Support Pledge purchases,

two of which were shipped here from the UK.

Exhibitions:

OPENING SOON

Birdscapes catalog still available for sale.

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Published to accompany my 2017 exhibition at the Museum of American Bird Art at MassAudubon in Canton, MA, copies of Birdscapes are still available directly from my studio. 

Full color, 56 pages long, 8"x10",  the softcover catalog is priced at

$38, which includes first class shipping anywhere in the USA.  

Contact me through my website or at [email protected] to order your copy.

Below: Plein air painting in Ein Gedi, Israel

This trip to Israelwas featured in the online weekly publication Plein Air Today in an article titled A Wilderness Trampled for Centuries.  

Click here to read the article about the only two American artists on the international team:  me and my good friend Debby Kaspari of Oklahoma.

And check the new album of paintings here on the website:  Artists for Nature: Dead Sea Project  to see the full array of work that I produced for the project.

Above: Desert Perch, Steppe Buzzard, oil/linen, 19"x16", a studio painting based on sketches and photos from the ANF trip to Israel.

BIRDSCAPES: Recent Paintings by James Coe

at the Museum Of American Bird Art at Mass Audubon

       January 29- May 14, 2017

LISTENING FOR WOODCOCK  ACQUIRED BY THE MUSEUM OF AMERICAN BIRD ART

Listening for Woodcock, oil/canvas/board, 14.25"x 20.5" (2016)

Purchased by MABA for their permanent collection following the 2017 exhibition Birdscapes in which it was shown, Listening For Woodcocks joins two other works of mine in this fine Museum's collection.  A smaller oil on paper study for the finished painting was also acquired at the same time.

SPRING SEEP, WOODCOCK

ACQUIRED BY THE BELL MUSEUM!

Spring Seep, Woodcock,  oil/linen  14"x 17½"  (2002)

I had been proud to have been invited by curator Don Luce to be a part of the recently concluded exhibition  Audubon and the Art of Birds.  The show originated at the Bell Museum of Natural History in Minneapolis and then traveled for nearly two years. Because only a handful of contemporary painters were invited to participate, I was particularly honored that two of my paintings were included as representative of the category: "The Bird in its Environment."  And now I am very excited to announce that at the conclusion of the traveling exhibit, the Bell Museum decided to acquire Spring Seep, Woodcock  for its permanent collection.

ON THE COVER OF BIRD WATCHER'S DIGEST

For the fourth time, I have a painting reproduced on the August 2015 cover of the magazine Bird Watcher's Digest.  If you are not familiar with this excellent periodical, it is edited by my good friend and international birding guru Bill Thompson III, and is based in Marietta, OH.  Definitely worth investigating.   Check their website.

The original  of the cover painting is a small "8 x 10" study of a Snowy Egret,  Wading in the Sun.

SEEN IN AMERICAN ART COLLECTOR

A terrific preview of my 2014 show at Shahinian Fine Art appeared in American Art Collector magazine.  As quoted in the magazine, gallery owner Albert Shahinian says of my work:

“As a painter [James Coe] melds high technical ability with a keen compositional eye. As an artist his work eschews the sentimental and the trite in order to create work that is deeply sensitive to the feeling of time and place—work that honors and speaks to the subjective realities underlying the ‘obvious’ in the everyday world around him.”

To read the full article in .pdf format, click here

(article courtesy of American Art Collector)

 Article About Our October 2013 Utah

Painting Trip in Plein Air Magazine!

Friends Travel to Paint the Desert, featured in the March 2014 issue of Plein Air Magazine, documents the trip I took to southern Utah with a group of a dozen top notch painters (and good friends) in October 2013.  This same group has taken painting trips to special locations for several years now. I joined them in the fall of 2010 in Provincetown, MA, and was glad to travel again to Utah for this second adventure with the group.

Perfect weather and a magnificient landscape helped us all have a super productive 10-day stay in Moab, with daily excursions north to Canyonlands and Arches National Parks, and south to the iconic Monument Valley.  Be sure to look for the current issue of Plein Air to read more about our trip!

The group at Monument Valley

Painting along the Colorado River canyon east of Moab

Paintings Acquired by the Woodson Museum

The Woodson already owns an oil painting of mine, purchased some years ago from Birds in Art, as well as a graphite study for an illustration that was published on the cover of the ornithological journal Auk.  And added now to their amazingly rich permanent collection is River Reflections, Fire and Ice  (below), and a watercolor illustration from my 1994 Golden Field Guide "Eastern Birds," Gnatchatcher, Kinglets and Vireos (right)

River Reflections, Fire and Ice,  oil/linen, 24"x 44"

Gnatchatcher, Kinglets and Vireo, watercolor, 1991