James Havard is an American painter best known for his Abstract Illusionist works from the 1970s. His paintings use the vocabulary of Abstract Expressionism with the addition of drop shadows and other trompe l’oeil effects. Born on June 29, 1937 in Galveston, TX, Havard went on to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia where he was influenced to paint in a realistic manner reminiscent of Jean-Baptiste-Camille-Corot and Édouard Manet. Since the late 1980s, he has been working in a style more similar to Art Brut, utilizing the aesthetics of indigenous and native artists along with encaustic instead of oil and acrylic paint. Critics especially praise the artist for his ability to access empathy and human emotion in his works. Today, Havard’s oeuvre can be found in the collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Modern Art in Stockholm, among others. He lives and works in Santa Fe, NM.