James Wright was born in 1935 in Peterborough. During his school years he was particularly interested in art, but was not encouraged to pursue a career in this field, and so on leaving school became a policeman.

In 1963 James started to paint in oils purely and simply for pleasure and by 1965, soon after his marriage, his painting career had taken a firm hold. He specialised in painting boats depicted in harbour scenes from the Cornish and Kent coasts that created particular interest with two leading publishing companies who undertook to print four of his canvasses portraying these subjects.

His attention then turned to painting landscapes and, using Ronald Blythe’s book “Akenfield” as a subject for an exhibition entitled “Akenfield Revisited”, he staged an exhibition at the Deben Gallery in Woodbridge, Suffolk in 1974. The exhibition not only delighted the author with his portrayal of the Suffolk scenes but the exhibition proved to be a complete sell out!

For 15 years James was a teacher of Woodwork and Technical Drawing at the Gleed Boy’s School, Spalding, having to combine his evening and weekend role as an artist with a schoolmasters life. But 1979 saw the change - leaving school days behind him, James became a truly professional artist.

It was a great privilege for Picturecraft Gallery and Exhibition Centre, in June 1982, to hold the first one-man show for him since making that important decision. The exhibition, the largest that James had ever staged, also proved to be highly successful.

Having vowed never to stage a "large" exhibition again, James took many months of gentle persuasion and an unseen, but ultimately fortunate, set of circumstances, after many successful years exhibiting on an annual basis, to retire from the art world with one final major one-man show.

His paintings portray the English landscape with truth, beauty and accuracy with a feeling for atmosphere. The traditional ploughing scene, with heavy horses at work in an East Anglian landscape has won particular acclaim in this area. It is no surprise to learn that he admires the 19th century Dutch and English landscape artists, particularly Constable.

In 2006 James released his first book entitled "James Wrights East Anglia"