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ABOUT THE ARTIST Jim Cobb was born in Kansas City in 1946 and moved to Oklahoma at age five. He considers himself to be a true Oklahoman. "Oklahoma is all I really know and remember growing up." He was a two-time State
Champion in tennis in high school and attended the University of Oklahoma
on a tennis scholarship.
He had a brush with studying art in high
school, but he remained focused on the more traditional course of study
through college (the biological sciences), and then medical school at OU.
He became an ENT doctor and surgeon.
During the period
H is formal training came in the form of the tutorial approach, which he found far more efficient than traditional college instruction. He was able to personally choose instructors those whose work he admired, primarily from faculty at the two national centers of art: New York and Chicago. The instructors he selected for himself were from the Art Students League of New York and the Art Institute of Chicago. This hands-on, individualistic, tutorial approach got him to a high level of thinking about his art and technique, and more time devoted to learning at the hands of working professionals at the peak of their careers.He had the good fortune of being able to share a studio with O. Gail Poole, probably the best Oklahoma artist ever, for 12 years before establishing his own space in Norman and also a studio in Taos, New Mexico. Jim paints full-time now, and as he says, “always from life.” He paints a variety of subject matter, from still-life, portraits, figures, and landscapes. Regarding the use of paint, Cobb enjoys varying his style. He often works with such a thick, impasto approach that he will do a complete canvas with a palette knife. He believes you can never get such a clean passage with anything other than the knife. “If I can boast of one thing, it would be the fact that I learned work ethics as a child, and probably spend more time in front of my easel today than any of my art friends and colleagues.” As an instructor, Cobb taught drawing at the University of Oklahoma. He continues to teach privately and is currently instructing classes at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, gives a local workshop on “‘drawing the portrait’” locally, and also has a weekly class on classical figure drawing. Where the Work of Jim Cobb can be Seen His work has shown in the past at galleries in Taos (The Nichols Gallery and the Ruby Elizabeth Gallery) and in Santa Fe (Houshang's Fine Arts). Currently, his work can be seen at The Gallery Hotel, called La Posada Resort and Spa, in Santa Fe, and also at Wilder Nightingale Fine Art in Taos. In Oklahoma, he has shown at the JRB Gallery, Willard Johnson’s Gallery, and as a guest artist at The 50 Penn Gallery, The Paseo Gallery, and the Mainsite Gallery of Norman. Currently his work can be seen locally at the Downtown Art & Frame shop in Norman. Recently he was asked to have a one-man show at the request of the Oklahoma Arts Council at the Governor’s Gallery of the State Capitol. Also, he exhibited his works alone at the Museum of the University of Science and Arts which traveled to two additional venues. He occasionally enters shows and competition exhibits, and has been accepted into the only nationally juried show in Oklahoma – the yearly National Juried Show of The Oklahoma Art Guild. He has won every award in oils and the award, including ‘Best of Show,’ for all categories. An Oklahoma Arts Council biography of Jim accompanied his work: Jim Cobb: Varied Styles in Oil Painting
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of his professional life in medicine, he was
re-introduced to an appreciation of art through his affinity for visiting
world class art museums, along with his future wife, while he and she were
dating. Years
later, at the end of his professional medical career, Jim took private oil
painting classes on Saturdays. “I was hooked immediately and had no time
for other recreational activities or hobbies.”