James Francis Gill (born 1934) is an American artist and one of the protagonists of the Pop art movement.

In 1959, Gill studied at the University of Texas at Austin, in order to work in architecture design in Odessa afterwards.

In 1962, Gill moved to Los Angeles, carrying in his luggage numerous works of art including Women in Cars which he presented to the Felix Landau Gallery.

William Inge described the dark graphite pencil compositions as follows: "His paintings hold a moment of truth, which is of unfortunate beauty and makes memorable".

By addressing his paintings for example with the Vietnam War, his works gain an additional socio-critical dimension which provides a much wider range than the mere and superficially not intended criticism of pop art in consumer society.

[7] In 1967, the São Paulo 9 - Environment United States: 1957-1967 in Brazil showed Gill's works with artists such as Andy Warhol and Edward Hopper.

His recognition as an artist has not only been based on the portraits of famous personalities such as John F. Kennedy, Marilyn Monroe and the Beatles, but to a large extent on his works which turned the political power structure and the war itself into question.

[11] In 1972, Gill went surprisingly into a self-imposed exile, in the expectation of being able to maintain a kind of long-distance relationship with the art scene.

So, when I drove up through the California redwoods and up along the coast, the beauty of the place blew my mind and I realized that I didn’t have to live in Los Angeles.

Around 2010, Gill's late creative phase began, in which – in contrast to the dominance of political motives in the early works – the artist increased the focus on the presentation of classic Pop art icons such as John Wayne, Paul Newman or Marilyn Monroe.

Through personal acquaintances with Tony Curtis, Kirk Douglas, John Wayne, Jim Morrison, Martin Luther King Jr. and Marlon Brando, Gill as an artist has become witness of a whole generation.

He now sets the image composition of his paintings in the computer and works consciously with mounting effects which he describes as Metamage or Mixed Media.