James Pattison Cockburn (1779–1847) was a military man and topographical artist—an army officer and watercolourist—who was taught drawing under Paul Sandby at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich in 1793. Under Sandby's tutelage he learnt the skills required for topography, and this translated into an exacting drawing style, often in graphite, pen and brown ink, or sepia wash.

Cockburn came from a military family and followed a similar course from an early age. After studying at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich he participated in the taking of Cape Colony in 1795 and in an expedition against Manila in 1798. Subsequently, ranked captain, he saw service at the siege of Copenhagen in 1807 and the siege of Antwerp in 1809, during which he produced topographic maps and drawings of military operations, later published as aquatints.

Stationed then at Norwich, until 1814, Cockburn made important acquaintance with the landscape painters of the Norwich school and exhibited at the Norwich Society of Artists. The work of Norwich school artists, such as John Sell Cotman and John Thirtle (reputedly his teacher), combined the precision of Dutch painting with the spontaneity of the Italian school—and this was formative for Cockburn, bringing a greater sense of atmosphere to his strictly topographical early style. Cockburn perfected his mastery of composition and his characteristic technique, involving graphite, pen and brown ink, and sepia wash to show light and shade.

After the Napoleonic Wars, Cockburn could visit the Continent more frequently, and there followed a period of travel and indefatigable sketching, working for the English engraver and publisher William Bernard Cooke. He produced 'A Voyage to Cadiz and Gibraltar', with thirty coloured plates, published in 1815, and between 1816 and 1818 he was sketching the excavations at Naples and Pompeii, published as 'Delineations of the Celebrated City of Pompeii', with plates etched by Pinelli of Rome. Further illustrated travel publications included 'Swiss Scenery', 1820, 'The Route of the Simplon', 1822 and 'The Valley of Aosta', 1823.

According to German composer Louis Spohr, to whom he showed more than 200 landscapes of Naples and its surroundings, Cockburn had 'extraordinary skill in catching charming views in a matter of minutes'. Spohr also reported that on occasions Cockburn used a form of mechanical projection—such as a camera lucida—to ensure sharpness and accurate scaling of his images.

Cockburn's mature oeuvre includes an interesting body of work from the second of two periods spent in Canada. As commander of the Royal Artillery in the Canadas from 1826, Cockburn sketched landscape subjects from Quebec to Niagara Falls, bringing to his compositions a topographer's accuracy and landscape artist's instinct for the poetic and picturesque.

Cockburn finished his career as the director of the laboratory of the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich and retired with the rank of major-general. He left a large body of work which remains relatively unstudied, providing great scope for research and reappraisal.