Bama Personal Works

Flesk Publications has produced a new book called James Bama: Personal Works that focuses on Bama's portraits in China and other exotic locations.

Bama, born in New York in 1926, was a successful illustrator at Cooper Studios and later became a freelancer of paperback covers. Along with a many contemporaries, he retired from illustration and devoted himself to chronicling the face of the American west.

But all along he loved to travel to China, Japan, Tibet, and Mexico. The exotic faces and costumes that he encountered there worked their way into a series of 67 oil portraits that he created for his own satisfaction, as the gallery market for such paintings wasn't necessarily a given.

Like Bama's western portraits, these are painted with a warm, limited range of oil color, and they feature careworn, craggy faces with a lot of character.

The book grew from an envisioned 112 pages to 144 pages as John Fleskes got more involved writing the introductory essays, and added the 24 photos from Bama's personal collection. The result is a 9 x 12 inch, hardcover book lovingly produced on high quality stock. The cover price is $45.00.

The previous book on Bama by Flesk Publications is called James Bama: American Realist, and it looks at the full sweep of Bama's career.
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James Bama: Personal Works on Amazon
James Bama: American Realist on Amazon
James Bama Sketchbook: A Seventy Year Journey on Amazon

Flesk Publications

Wikipedia on James Bama