James Paterson PRSW RSA RWS (21 August 1854 – 25 January 1932), was a Scottish landscape and portrait painter associated with The Glasgow Boys movement of artists.

When his father was orphaned at nineteen his uncle James Hunter appointed him a foreman in his warehouse and took him into partnership two years later at the early age of twenty-one.

His father was a good watercolourist as well as one of the earliest amateur photographers in Scotland and most of his family developed artistic interests.

Paterson spent over 22 years in the area painting the Nithsdale and Ayrshire hills, the Solway Firth and the local river and burns, capturing the elusive colours and light inherent in the Scottish countryside.

During this period he formed friendships with a group of artists - Sir James Guthrie (1859-1930), E. A. Walton (1860-1922), W. Y. McGregor (1855-1923), E. A. Hornel (1864-1933) and others - who came to be known collectively as 'The Glasgow Boys'.