James "Jim" Sohr began his life in Wisconsin, raised in a staunchly religious household. He grew up reading the Sunday comics, eventually becoming a mathematician before escaping in the early 1960s, driving straight to New Orleans' French Quarter. It was teeming with poets, writers, musicians and artists, and he immersed himself in the bohemian life of the Quarter. When Sohr spied in an art gallery window a Noel Rockmore portrait of a local musician, he stopped in his tracks. In that moment he realized art did not need to be realistic. Thereafter, everything he made emerged out of his subconscious.
Sohr made his way to San Francisco, but a conviction back in Louisiana for selling marijuana led to three and a half years in Angola prison, where Sohr really learned how to paint, studying the masters from art books. The essentially self-taught artist has amassed an immense body of work since.