Australian career
After his return to Sydney, Jackson settled on the North Shore of the harbour. There, at the Art Society, he taught drawing and painting from 1917 to 1926. During this period he had his first solo exhibition and got married. The solo exhibition took place in 1920 at the Gayfield Shaw Art Salon. [1] Four years later, on 10 December 1924, he married Dorathea Elizabeth Toovey, one of his students, who later became a noted artist in her own right. [2]
Public recognition and appreciation of Jackson’s talents came early in his career. In 1914 the Art Gallery of New South Wales purchased Oleanders, the first of many paintings from Jackson to be purchased by the Gallery. His painting Middle Harbour from Manly Heights, 1923, “was purchased through public subscription by the Manly Council and became the first artwork in the Manly Art Gallery and Museum collection.” [3] Regional galleries in Victoria and New South Wales were also quick to recognise and purchase Impressionist works by Jackson.
In December 1926 the couple left Sydney to visit Paris and London, and then travel through the Pyrenees to Spain. They returned to Sydney in spring of 1928.
The Great Depression in the early 1930s crimped the family's income. This forced James and Dora to rent out the house they had built at Seaforth, a suburb of northern Sydney, and to move to the country where the cost of living was lower. Still, by 1936 James had a studio at Mosman.
From 1916 to 1933 Jackson was a member of the Australian Art Association, Melbourne. He was one of the first Fellows (1922) of the Royal Art Society of New South Wales, and he became life vice-president in 1965. In 1937 Jackson helped found the Australian Academy of Art and exhibited there until 1946.
In 1942 Jackson joined the camouflage section of the Department of Defence. He remained there until the authorities discovered his true age and dismissed him for being over-age. [1]
In 1947 he and Dora divorced. At the time, they had two children, a son and a daughter.
After his divorce James lived alone and continued to paint. He finally died in Sydney on 9 September 1975.
In 1991, his daughter Jacqueline, published a biography of her father.
Art
While living on the North Shore, Jackson painted many landscapes and seascapes of Sydney harbour, both in oils and watercolour. An example of this is The Harbour, Neutral Bay, Sydney; a view of Sydney Harbour from Kurraba Point, Neutral Bay, depicting the beginnings of high-rise development in the suburb in the early 20th century. Sydney Harbour and surrounds provided Jackson with many scenes for his canvas and were popular with collectors. A year after his death, Christie's in London auctioned two pictures by J.R. Jackson of Sydney Harbour. “A London dealer paid $1,794 for a painting of Clontarf, and a private buyer paid $1,617 for a painting of old Cremorne.” [4] His early work showed the influence of Impressionism. Then when he lived in the countryside during the Great Depression, he painted landscapes, mostly in oils.
In Jackson's later years he painted rural landscapes in New South Wales, particularly "around Bellingen, painting at Dorrigo and also in the mountains around the upper reaches of the Macleay River." [5] In the mid 1950s Jackson toured and painted in Victoria around Lake Eildon, and the Dandenong ranges.
Continuing interest in the art of James R. Jackson was evident in the 2012-2013 exhibition held at Manly Art Gallery and Museum. With reference to the Gallery, the catalogue for the exhibition refers to "the painting that launched an art gallery." [ [6] ] Painted by Jackson in 1923, 'Middle Harbour from Manly Heights' was purchased for one hundred pounds. Drawing inspiration from his childhood, Sydney Harbour would provide subject matter for Jackson for over five decades.
Brett Whiteley AO was an Australian artist. He is represented in the collections of all the large Australian galleries, and was twice winner of the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman prizes. He held many exhibitions, and lived and painted in Australia as well as Italy, England, Fiji and the United States.
Australian art is any art made in or about Australia, or by Australians overseas, from prehistoric times to the present. This includes Aboriginal, Colonial, Landscape, Atelier, early-twentieth-century painters, print makers, photographers, and sculptors influenced by European modernism, Contemporary art. The visual arts have a long history in Australia, with evidence of Aboriginal art dating back at least 30,000 years. Australia has produced many notable artists of both Western and Indigenous Australian schools, including the late-19th-century Heidelberg School plein air painters, the Antipodeans, the Central Australian Hermannsburg School watercolourists, the Western Desert Art Movement and coeval examples of well-known High modernism and Postmodern art.
Charles Edward Conder was an English-born painter, lithographer and designer. He emigrated to Australia and was a key figure in the Heidelberg School, arguably the beginning of a distinctively Australian tradition in Western art.
Sir Arthur Ernest Streeton was an Australian landscape painter and a leading member of the Heidelberg School, also known as Australian Impressionism.
Sir William Dobell was an Australian portrait and landscape artist of the 20th century. Dobell won the Archibald Prize, Australia's premier award for portrait artists on three occasions. The Dobell Prize is named in his honour.
John Henry Olsen AO OBE was an Australian artist and winner of the 2005 Archibald Prize. Olsen's primary subject of work was landscape.
Rover Thomas Joolama, known as Rover Thomas, was a Wangkajunga and Kukatja Aboriginal Australian artist.
Sam Fullbrook was an Australian artist who was a winner of the Archibald Prize for portraiture and the Wynne Prize for landscape. He was described as "last of the bushman painters". However Fullbrook was fine art-trained and his sophisticated works are in every State art museum in Australia and international collections.
Lloyd Frederic Rees was an Australian landscape painter who twice won the Wynne Prize for his landscape paintings.
Elioth Lauritz Leganyer Gruner was an Australian artist. A successor of the plein air Heidelberg School tradition in Australian art, Gruner is known for his high-key impressionist landscapes and his ability to capture the ephemeral effects of light. According to Norman Lindsay, Gruner "painted the purest light that ever has been seen on a bit of canvas".
James Muir Auld was an Australian artist. His works are signed J. Muir Auld. Auld was born in Ashfield, New South Wales, third son of Presbyterian minister, Reverend John Auld (–1912) and his wife, Georgina née Muir. Auld attended Ashfield Public School and later, Sydney Grammar School. He worked as a clerk for the Ashfield Borough Council and enrolled in night classes in drawing at Ashfield Technical School. He spent spare time drawing and sketching the foreshores of Sydney Harbour.
Elisabeth Cummings is an Australian artist known for her large abstract paintings and printmaking. She has won numerous awards including Fleurieu Art Prize, The Portia Geach Portrait Prize, The Mosman Art Prize, and The Tattersalls Art Prize. Her work is owned in permanent collections across Australia including Artbank, The Queensland Art Gallery, The Gold Coast City Art Gallery and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. She is notable for receiving recognition later in her career, considered by the Australian Art Collector as one of the 50 most collectible Australian Artists.
William Charles Piguenit was an Australian landscape painter.
Norman Lloyd was an Australian landscape painter.
George Feather Lawrence (1901–1981) was born in Sydney, Australia and for many years was regarded as one of the foremost painters in the impressionist style. He studied under Julian Rossi Ashton at the famous Sydney Art School in the old Queen Victoria Building; and later in London and Paris.
Peter Sharp is an Australian artist who works predominantly in drawing.
Fiona Lowry is an Australian painter who airbrushes pale colours to portray landscapes with people in them. The landscapes are beautiful and ambiguous, provoking the dangerous side of wilderness. Lowry also paints portraits and won the 2014 Archibald Prize at the Art Gallery of New South Wales with a portrait of Penelope Seidler. She is represented in the National Gallery of Australia, as well as the state galleries of Australia and in private collections.
Reinis Zusters was a Latvian-born Australian artist. Zusters was a prolific painter, working predominantly in oils, painting many large landscapes, including triptychs of the Blue Mountains. Zusters drew much of his inspiration from the Australian countryside, depicting the colour and form of nature as a rich and vibrant panorama.
Frances Dolina Ellis was an artist, printmaker and teacher who lived, worked and exhibited in both Australia and New Zealand. Ellis was well-known in the arts community in New Zealand and whilst living in Australia she had a significant professional relationship with artist and art teacher Antonio Dattilo-Rubbo.
Elaine E. Coghlan (1897–1989) was a Sydney-based painter, print-maker and art teacher, one of the later impressionist landscape artists active in the 1920s and 1930s.
