James Rizzi (October 5, 1950–December 26, 2011) was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. A pop artist with a gifted child's sensibility, Rizzi was famous for his style of 3 dimensional art and colorful 'animated' creations. He made a name for himself with small-scale graphic works that appeared almost simultaneously on the scenes of both the art establishment and the counterculture, as he exhibited work at the Brooklyn Museum in 1976 and designed an album sleeve and animated videos for the new wave band Tom Tom Club in the early 80s.

Rizzi achieved his most high-profile job in 1996 with his commission to create art for the Olympic Games, creating a series of paintings of the opening ceremony that are now in the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland.