Jim Monson was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1943. He received his BA diploma from St. Olaf College, where he took painting courses from John Maakestad. Monson continued his studies at the University of Iowa, where he majored in printmaking under the direction of Mauricio Lasansky. In 1969, he went to Paris to work with Stanley William Hayter at Atelier 17. Monson became an assistant at the atelier and printer for Hayter’s work from 1970 to 1973. He rented a house with a studio equipped with a Le Deuil press that was not far from Atelier 17, where he continued his work. Monson later accepted a position at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where he began combining drawn images with a relief intaglio plate. Monson developed a department of lithography at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. In 1985 he returned to settle definitively in Tourrette-Levens, near Nice. Monson is now known more for his color woodcuts. He stumbled onto this manner of printing by observing Picasso’s simplistic approach to creating his linoleum prints.