James Elliott Bama | Obituaries

James Elliott Bama, 95, died peacefully in his sleep on April 24, 2022. He was born April 28, 1926, in New York City, the second son of Benjamin and Selma (Abrams) Bama.

He showed an early aptitude for drawing, copying comic strips like Flash Gordon, Tarzan and Prince Valiant. In school, he was always the class artist. As a teenager, he attended the Fiorello LaGuardia High School of Music and Art. His father died suddenly when Jim was 14, and since his mother had become an invalid after a stroke, he had to work after school and do the housecleaning.

The U.S. entered World War II when he 15. He enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1944, and was trained as a navigator and stationed in several southern states. The war ended before he would have gone overseas, but he still qualified for the G.I. Bill, and thus was able to go to the Art Students League, where he studied under the illustrator Frank J. Reilly.

After art school he began to get commissions for illustrations, and was soon taken on by the Charles E. Cooper Studio. In the ensuing years he did paintings for The Saturday Evening Post, Reader’s Digest, Bantam and Dell paperback books, and many other publications. The first image for the Star Trek series, in TV Guide, was his work. Many people who grew up in the 60s will remember the box covers he illustrated for Aurora Plastics Corporation’s monster kits, as well as Bantam Books’ Doc Savage series.

In 1963 Jim was offered a job by a paperback company that paid less than his usual clients. The cover included images of two nurses. He had just been invited to a party by a friend whose wife was a nurse, and thinking he might meet someone who would pose for less than a professional model, he went. Instead of a nurse, he met Lynne Klepfer, who was taking a year off from college to work as a hand weaver. He asked her to model for him, and the following year they embarked on a marriage that would last 57 years.

In 1966 Jim and Lynne visited Wyoming for the first time, staying at Bob and Helen Meyers’ Circle M Ranch on the South Fork. Two years later, after some family deaths, they decided to return there for a year. They never went back to New York to live, and several years later bought a house in Wapiti. Their son Ben was born here in 1977.

During his first years in Wyoming, Jim began to make a transition from illustration to fine art, painting for himself during the days and doing book covers at night. In 1971 he was taken on by New York’s Hammer Gallery and had his first one-man show there in 1973. A few years later he moved to the prestigious Coe-Kerr Gallery.

In 1977, his one-man show there got a glowing review from ARTnews. In the summer issue, Gerrit Henry said,”Bama’s is western art that any self-respecting art critic is automatically required to sneer at. But it’s hard to sneer. In a supernaturalistic style that makes New York Photo Realism look like Action Painting, Bama paints heroes of the contemporary West … He takes the true stuff of American myth, Olympian figures of a dying past, and reinstates them in our cultural consciousness …”

He concluded, “For all its desert-like stretches, Wyoming has proved a fertile ground for painting of a very unfashionable, very powerful sort.”

Jim’s career as an artist unfortunately came to an end in the early 2000s, when his eyesight failed. He accepted the situation with great equanimity, saying that after over 50 years at the drawing board, he was ready to rest.

Perhaps the most fitting epitaph is his own words, written in 1979:

“In a violent and often irrational world perhaps my paintings can bring a moment of pleasure – of values that can be understood by many people and even rub off on a few aspiring artists. What more can I ask for or expect to attain in my own lifetime? After that, my fate and reputation will be in the hands of curators, collectors, dealers, critics and historians or, perhaps, junk dealers. This is out of my hands and I cannot dwell on it. So let my belief in hard work, older people, and virtues that are perhaps vanishing forever be my message for those who care to stop a while and look.”

Jim passed away at home, in his sleep, early on April 24. He was preceded in death by his brother Howard, and is survived by his wife Lynne and son Ben (Michelline).

Ballard Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements, and cremation has taken place. Out of respect for his own oft-stated wishes, no funeral service, other than a small family gathering, is planned.

Special thanks to Jim’s end-of-life caregivers Robbin Pollock, Mia Hall, Dorothy Miller, Christy Lopez and Diane Johnson.

Memories and condolences can be left on Jim’s memorial page at BallardFH.com.


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