Bearded and much married artist James Egan sleeps in a coffin and spends part of each day pounding a punching bag with the hands that have earned him an international reputation. The former tent boxer and horse breaker might not seem like the sort of bloke from whom artists are formed, yet James Egan has become an important figure in the world's art markets. His customers include the rich and the famous, his work hangs in Buckingham palace and on other prestigious walls around the world, including the Moscow parliament.

At his gallery studio home at Addington, near Ballarat, James Egan adds the finishing touches to works he may have started painting anywhere in the world, the slums of Morocco, the Bohemian quarter of San Francisco, the parched wilderness of central Australia, or the inside of the plain white coffin in which he catnaps daily. The raw inspiration from life ends up as paintings in swish Paris exhibitions or Sothebys in London, where the bidding for a James Egan can reach a high figures.

So how did this eccentric man get into the art business? What makes James Egan throb? The answers are contained in a poverty-stricken and in some ways extraordinary past. Lean as a greyhound with grasshopper movements he is the last man on earth you would pick as a boxer. Emerging from the alcoholic rubble of a shattered family life, James travelled from town to town earning a living as a rough rider and fighter with the road shows. Tent boxing seems a long way from the art world in which he has become such a success. The tent fighter was barely educated, but what little he had he retained despite the beatings received at the hands of his fellow fighters and he soon developed an urgent need to educate himself. He began to read all the books he could get his hands on, using colors and paint for what he could not express in words.

Pent-up emotions come alive beautifully in Egan's art. His evocative landscapes and scenes of Australian life are painted with a feeling that has made him one of the leading artists in the world.

James Egan's paintings hang in major galleries of the world, he has listings in all major worldwide publications including Who's Who in Australia, The International Who's Who of Contemporary Achievement: Men of Achievement out of the UK, Debrett's handbook in Britain, The International Biographical Roll of Honor, Australian Artists Today, Artists and Galleries of Australia and New Zealand, Who's Who of Australian Visual Artists and he was designated a "Living treasure in Perpetuity" in 1986.

Although he made the difficult switch from fighter to painter, he has not been able to completely abandon his former life. In his studio hangs a much abused punching bag alongside the coffin used to snooze in during the day. "Most days I take a kip in the coffin," he said. "It's comfortable and strangely relaxing."