James Gurney is an American artist and author, renowned for his illustrated book series Dinotopia. This series is uniquely presented as a 19th-century explorer's journal from an island utopia where humans and dinosaurs cohabit harmoniously.

Gurney is also a paleoartist who specializes in depicting and restoring extinct fauna, including both avian and non-avian dinosaurs, through his paintings.

Born on June 14, 1958, in Glendale, California, James was raised in Palo Alto as the youngest of five children to Joanna and Robert Gurney, a mechanical engineer. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology in 1979 with Phi Beta Kappa honors from the University of California at Berkeley. He further honed his painting skills at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California, where he met his wife, Jeanette. In 1984, the couple moved to the Hudson Valley of New York State, where they raised their two sons, Daniel and Franklin.