Billy Morrow Jackson (1926–2006) was an American painter. Jackson was born in

Kansas City, Missouri Kansas City, Missouri, abbreviated KC or KCMO, is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri by List of cities in Missouri, population and area. The city lies within Jackson County, Missouri, Jackson, Clay County, Missouri, Clay, and Pl ...

in 1926. He completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the

St. Louis School of Fine Arts The St. Louis School of Fine Arts was founded as the Saint Louis School and Museum of Fine Arts in 1879 as part of Washington University in St. Louis, and has continuously offered visual arts and sculpture education since then. Its purpose-buil ...

Washington University in St. Louis Washington University in St. Louis (WashU) is a private research university in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. Founded in 1853 by a group of civic leaders and named for George Washington, the university spans 355 acres across its Danforth ...

, and later received an MFA from

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

, where he later taught. Over the course of his education, Mr. Jackson was taught by

Max Beckmann Max Carl Friedrich Beckmann (February 12, 1884 – December 27, 1950) was a German painter, drawing, draftsman, printmaker, sculpture, sculptor, and writer. Although he is classified as an Expressionist artist, he rejected both the term and the m ...

, Fred Conway and

Abraham Rattner Abraham Rattner (July 8, 1895 – February 14, 1978) was an American artist, best known for his richly colored paintings, often with religious subject matter. During World War I, he served in France with the U.S. Army as a camouflage artist. Ear ...

. In addition to the

Bureau of Reclamation The Bureau of Reclamation, formerly the United States Reclamation Service, is a List of United States federal agencies, federal agency under the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees water resource management, specifically as it ...

's commission, Mr. Jackson received several other government commissions. These include paintings for

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

to record the

Apollo space program The Apollo program, also known as Project Apollo, was the United States human spaceflight program led by NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, indep ...

, and paintings in the state capitol buildings of

Olympia, Washington Olympia is the capital city of the U.S. state of Washington. It had a population of 55,605 at the 2020 census, making it the state of Washington's 23rd-most populous city. Olympia is the county seat of Thurston County, and the central city ...

and

Springfield, Illinois Springfield is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Illinois. Its population was 114,394 at the 2020 United States census, which makes it the state's List of cities in Illinois, seventh-most populous cit ...

. All the paintings that he completed for the Bureau of Reclamation are

watercolor Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (Commonwealth English; see American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin 'water'), is a painting metho ...

s, however, Mr. Jackson is probably better known for his oils of the

Midwest The Midwestern United States (also referred to as the Midwest, the Heartland or the American Midwest) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau. It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It ...

. After beginning in printmaking, specifically

woodcut Woodcut is a relief printing technique in printmaking. An artist carves an image into the surface of a block of wood—typically with gouges—leaving the printing parts level with the surface while removing the non-printing parts. Areas that ...

s and

lithograph Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the miscibility, immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by ...

s, he made the shift to painting with ''Still Life with Postage Stamp'' in 1955. The expressionism and flat, two-dimensional, patterned prints of his earlier years gave way to increasing naturalism. Realism as a reaction against

Abstract Expressionism Abstract expressionism in the United States emerged as a distinct art movement in the aftermath of World War II and gained mainstream acceptance in the 1950s, a shift from the American social realism of the 1930s influenced by the Great Depressi ...

gained a significant following starting in the late 1960s, the most visible of the movement being the photorealists and the super-realists, artists such as

Richard Estes Richard Estes (born May 14, 1932, in Kewanee, Illinois) is an American artist, best known for his photorealist paintings. The paintings generally consist of reflective, clean, and inanimate city and geometric landscapes. He is regarded as one of ...

and

Chuck Close Charles Thomas Close (July 5, 1940 – August 19, 2021) was an American painter, visual artist, and photographer who made massive-scale photorealism, photorealist and abstract portraits of himself and others. Close also created photo portraits ...

. While Billy Morrow Jackson was certainly painting in a realist manner, his use of ambiguity (imperfect or rough lines, for example) and his use of light for compositional purposes also linked him to the historic American Luminist school of the 19th century. The Luminists tended to depict landscape scenes (in the tradition of

John Constable John Constable (; 11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English landscape painter in the Romanticism, Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedha ...

and Joseph M. W. Turner) with a romantic sensibility, much like Jackson was doing. The sky is a dominant feature in many of Jackson's paintings, pushing the horizon line down towards the bottom of the canvas. The empty fields and solitary farm houses impart a sense of vastness and expanse that is enhanced by his use of perspective. Some of Jackson's later works moved indoors, where he exploited walls and doors to impart depth as well as employing perspective. Jackson's paintings recall the paintings of

Andrew Wyeth Andrew Newell Wyeth ( ; July 12, 1917 – January 16, 2009) was an American visual artist and one of the best-known American artists of the middle 20th century. Though he considered himself to be an "abstractionist," Wyeth was primarily a realis ...

and

Edward Hopper Edward Hopper (July 22, 1882 – May 15, 1967) was an American realism painter and printmaker. He is one of America's most renowned artists and known for his skill in depicting modern American life and landscapes. Born in Nyack, New York, to a ...

in their use of realism to convey feelings of isolation and vastness. Jackson died in 2006.

References

Biography

External links

The artist's catalogue raisonne created by the Jane Haslem Gallery online
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, Billy Morrow 1926 births 2006 deaths Artists from Kansas City, Missouri 20th-century American painters American male painters 21st-century American painters 21st-century American male artists Painters from Missouri Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts alumni University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign School of Art and Design alumni University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty American watercolorists 20th-century American printmakers