James Leland Lockhart was born in Arkansas in 1912.  He was a successful commercial illustration artist for many companies.  He did illustration advertisements that appeared in several magazines including illustrations for Maxwell House Coffee, Standard Oil Company and Wrigley Chewing gum advertisements.  He won the famed Artist's Guild Award for best painting in 1950.  One of his baseball pictures hangs in Baseball's Hall of Frame in Cooperstown, New York.  He painted calendar illustrations for the Gerlach Barklow calendar company including their highly successful Bluebird series.

Source:
Information courtesy of Tim and Michelle Smith, illustration art collectors