James Bisset Crockart [commonly known as James Crockart] was born in Stirling, Scotland, on 19 July 1885 and studied at Edinburgh School of Art and Glasgow School of Art. He served his apprenticeship with a local architect from 1902 to 1909, and then moved to Chipping Campden where he became an assistant to Charles R. Ashbee. In 1911 he emigrated to Canada. He lived briefly in Montreal where he worked as an assistant to the architectural firm Saxe & Archibald. He then moved to Saskatchewan where from c.1912 to 1914 he was in partnership with Robert M. Thompson.
Between 1920 and 1925 Crockart was employed by the Shagpat Studios in Montreal. He later opened his own studio in Montreal where he worked as an industrial and poster designer. Between 1927 and the early 1950s he designed several posters for Canadian Pacific Railways (CPR). Crockart was in charge of the CPR exhibit at the New York World's Fair of 1939-40. Crockart was also a painter. He died in Huntingdon, Québec, on 19 April 1974