Born in Buffalo, New York in 1953, James P. Kerr has been painting professionally for over 50 years. In this time, he has lived throughout the eastern seaboard, including many years in the Blue Ridge Mountains and South Florida. While his primary focus is oil on canvas, he explores his impressionist and colorist ideas through many media, including watercolors, graphite, pastel, and lithographs. He is a plein air and studio painter with a wide range of subjects. These include but are not limited to seaside and mountain landscapes, figures, musicians, still life, and abstract. As a teen, he studied with the late Laszlo Szabo in 1964 - 1970 and the late Carl Illig in 1971. Since then, James' work has been represented in many private, corporate, and public collections, including the Art in Embassies Program through the U.S. State Department.