Born in Skirling, James Howe was the son of a minister. He began his working life apprenticed to a house painter, but his interest was in painting pictures, his particular talent being for horses and cattle. He is said to have visited London only once to paint horses in the Royal Mews. In 1815, he went to the field of Waterloo and in 1816, exhibited a painting of the Battle at the British Institute; this was the only picture he exhibited in London, although he exhibited frequently in Edinburgh. Howe produced a group of portraits of well-known animals for a series of British domestic animals published by the Highland Society of Scotland. In 1824, W. H. Lizars of Edinburgh (1788-1859) engraved a set of fourteen horse pictures after Howe's works and, in 1832, forty-five engravings of horses and cattle were published. The picture for which he is best known is that mezzotinted by Charles Turner of Mr Flemming of Barochan Castle, with John Anderson, one of the last of the old Scottish falconers and William Harvey, his artist and falconer. This picture is of a good composition and a rare subject and it has been much copied since. The original hangs in the Scottish National Portrait Gallery. He died in Edinburgh. Howe was a lively illustrator of Scottish sporting life. The Horse Fair is a masterpiece of compositional complexity with its swirling figure-of-eight movements leading the eye through every aspect of the crowded scene.