Jim Warren began painting and selling his art in high school over 50 years ago. Now considered a “Living Legend of the Art World”, Jim continues to create his unique style of art seen the world over.
His talents won him a first place award at his first art show in 1975.
Soon after Jim began painting illustrations for books, movies and record album covers, most notably the Grammy Award winning cover for Bob Seger’s “Against the Wind” in 1981.
”Like most people, I was mesmerized by his pure talent, but was even more amazed by his imagination.
WylandWorld Renowned Wildlife Artist
Released in February of 1980, Bob Seger’s album “Against The Wind” was a huge commercial success, reaching #1 on the Billboard 200, selling 3.7 million copies and going 5X platinum.
I was commissioned to paint the cover for the album and it presented a new challenge for me – painting horses. Although my specialty was people, I took on the challenge and the result was a unique painting and I won the Grammy in 1980 for it.
Now, over 40 years later, it remains one of my most popular paintings.
”Jim Warren’s art is masterful in that so much of his creativity can transport its beholder to a place of transcendent beauty.
Mike LoveLead Singer of The Beach Boys
Own the latest collection of Jim Warren’s work featuring hundreds of original paintings, from surrealism to illustrations to world-famous masterpieces.
Signed, limited-edition Art of Jim Warren – An American Original book also contains Jim’s collaborations with Wyland, thoughts, interviews.
The man behind the iconic art
In 2010, a two-part interview was conducted at Jim Warren Studios where Jim talked about his life as an artist. In this exclusive interview, he touches on his inspiration, offers advice and provides insight to his incredible career spanning over four decades.
An Interview With JW Part 1
An Interview With JW Part 2
Jim Warren was born in 1949 in Long Beach, California to Don and Betty Warren. Jim grew up with an older brother Rick and older sister Kathy.
He began drawing at the age of two and continued drawing, on and off, through middle and high school.
While in high school Jim considered all the usual career choices – artist, magician and rock star but it wasn’t until 1967 that he decided to be an artist, a “Rich and Famous” one at that.
Using only traditional oil paint on stretched canvas, Jim started his early career through the 70s as a fine artist, winning first place awards at large outdoor art shows in California. Although inspired by master painters in museums by some of the great artists of all time such as Dali, Rockwell, Rembrandt etc, Jim is mostly self-taught and prides himself on his famous advise to aspiring artists, “To hell with the rules…paint what you like.”
”Thank you Jim, for the child-like feeling of amazement you have brought back to me. You not only 'hold the light', you create it.
Artie KornfeldCo-Creator of Woodstock
During the 80’s Jim pursued his high school dream of painting album cover art and painted hundreds of magazine illustrations, movie posters, book covers and especially album covers for such stars as Alice Cooper, Prince and Bob Seger, the latter winning A Grammy Award for best album package for the cover of Seger’s “Against the Wind” album which reached #1 on the Billboard 200.
The 90′s ushered in a new focus, that of the environment and saving earth. Jim painted “Earth…Love it or Lose it” which received critical acclaim and was featured on numerous magazines, billboards and shirts. It also became a popular visual representation for the global environmental movement.
In the mid 90′s Jim began painting famous actors and incorporating celebrities and friends into his work referring to the works as “personalized paintings”. Jim painted Juliette Lewis, Wyland and Michael Parnell (CEO of Oakley Sunglasses) during this period.
In 2004, Jim’s collaborations with Disney were released as fine art prints. Jim continues to paint Disney characters and his own unique interpretations of Disney characters to this day.In 2009 Jim began painting celebrities for the Fame-Wall project in New York and Hollywood (www.fame-wall.com), painting portraits and unveiling them with the likes of The Beach Boys, John Stamos, Kelsey Grammar, Kristen Chenowith, Brooke Shields and others.
In present day Jim continues to expand on his work and create new worlds on canvas. When not in his studio Jim enjoys time with his wonderful family.
Jim considers his greatest accomplishment to date to be the many letters and communications he has received from around the world from his fans sharing how his work has inspired them and made their days a little brighter.
If you would like to send a letter to Jim, please visit the Contact page and send an email.
