James Vincent Cupoli (1907-2002) was born in Ohio and became a minstrel-show performer and vaudevillian during the 1920s and 1930s. He later studied art in Europe and at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. where he also taught. He became a prominent Washington D.C. area painter and art teacher. He had numerous exhibitions at a variety of venues nationally and his work is held in private collections in the United State, Australia, New Zealand, England, France, Spain and South America, and in the Smithsonian American Art Museum.