James Gibson

James Gibson was born in 1938 in Moore Haven, FL. His family moved to Fort Pierce in the 1940s and he met Alfred Hair. Both of them becoming childhood friends long before the Florida Highwaymen started selling paintings. At an older age, he left college to join Alfred Hair in the art business. James Gibson was instrumental to the formation of Florida Highwaymen group and was there in the stages of in the earliest stages alongside with Alfred Hair, Harold Newton, and Roy Mclendon. He was an extremely skilled fast painter who could produce dozens of paintings in a single day’s time. Gibson was also an excellent sales man who was ingenious enough to called carpet factories and ask which colors are sold the most in order to know to use that color more in his paintings. His work was in a scene from the movie Catch me if you can featuring Leonardo Dicaprio. Both presidents, son and father, George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush own paintings from him as well as Governor Charlie Christ. Aside from being inducted in the Florida Artists Hall of Fame in 2004 he also recieved the Florida Ambassador Art Award 2005.