The Early Days
Kenneth Jack's interest and talent for the arts blossomed at an early age. Encouraged by his father (Harold Jack, also an artist) and always supplied as much paper as necessary Kenneth started to draw the world around him.
He first went to North Caulfield Primary School an then to Melbourne High School where his artistic skills were noticed and encouraged. At the same time he studied at the Melbourne Technical College (now RMIT) Kenneth finished at Melbourne High School and Melbourne Technical College completing a Drawing Teachers Primary Certificate and the Secondary Certificate.
The War intervened and in 1942 Kenneth joined the Royal Australian Air Force as a survey draftsman but still found time to study water colour under John Rowell at Melbourne Technical College. He met Harold Freedman at this time who was in charge of the RAAF publications and was able to publish some of Kenneth's work in the RAAF Log and Wings .
In 1944-45 Kenneth spent eighteen months in the Islands north of Australia from New Guinea to Labuan on the north of Borneo. Whilst there Kenneth found time to create a staggering five hundred artworks, drawings, watercolours and pen and wash and the only plein air oil paintings he has undertaken.
After the war under the returned soldiers Commonwealth Rehabilitation Training Scheme Kenneth gained the Art Teachers Certificate and the Trained Teachers Certificate as quickly as possible and went on to teach at Box Hill Boys High School and Upwey High School up to 1950.
Painting & Watercolours
Kenneth Jack's art began to focus on painting, the new acrylic painting medium had become available in the early 1960's. Constantly stimulated by subject matter in the out of the way places he began extended expeditions into the outback of Australia from the Flinders Ranges of South Australia to the Kimberley Ranges of Western Australia.
Under the encouragement of his friend and Sydney gallery representative, John Brackenreg, Kenneth became a full time artist.
Kenneth found the Australian landscape awe inspiring and in both his paintings and watercolours at the time he was able to express the powerful elements that impacted him, the space, depth, earthiness, structure, colour and rhythms of the inland.
In the 1970's to 1980's Kenneth focussed more on his watercolours which took on the scale and power of his large paintings. The most ambitious of these were the triptychs usually 1 metre high by 3.8 metres across!
Printmaking and Teaching
After the war under the returned soldiers Commonwealth Rehabilitation Training Scheme Kenneth gained the Art Teachers Certificate and the Trained Teachers Certificate as quickly as possible and went on to teach at Box Hill Boys High School and Upwey High School up to 1950.
Kenneth was already majoring in printmaking through this period in fact by 1945 was becoming known as an artist winning prizes in 1946 and 1947 for watercolour as well.
In 1952 Harold Freedman invited Kenneth and a group of other experienced artists to attend evening sessions at the Melbourne Technical College and utilize the printmaking facilities. This was to mark a revival in printmaking that had been in the doldrums since the 1930's.
In this incredibly hectic period Kenneth also married Betty Dyer, was teaching part time at Caulfield Institute of Technology and was an assistant Art inspector of Arts for Technical Schools.
Kenneth's artistic influences at the time were such artists as Russell Drysdale, Rupert Bunny, William Dobell, Douglas Dundas, Noel Counihan, Donald Friend and Arthur Streeton.
Overseas influences included Rembrandt and Turner (both favourites) John Piper, Graham Sutherland, John Cotman and Cezanne.
Awards
Kenneth Jack was awarded an MBE in 1982 and the AM in 1987 in recognition of his contribution to the arts.
He was a prodigious prize getter especially from the 1940's to the 1970's including the Crouch Watercolour prize, the Trustees Watercolour Prize The Wynne Competition, Tattersall's Art Award and the Camberwell Rotary Art Prize.
Kenneth was the only Australian born member of the Royal Watercolour Society in London .
Kenneth is represented in an A to Z of collections such as that of HM the Queen and HM the Queen Mother, the Adelaide City Council, The Australian National Gallery, Artbank, the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the Art Gallery of South Australia, the Art Gallery of Western Australia, The Australian War Memorial, Broken Hill Art Gallery Chisholm Institute of Technology, Sydney's Mitchell Library, Hobart's State Library, Osaka's Otemon University, Queensland Art Gallery, London's Victoria and Albert Museum, and Warnambool Art Gallery to name a few.
Exhibitions
Selected Solo Exhibitions
Australia
New South Wales
1966, 1972, 1992, 2004 Artarmon Galleries, Sydney
1993 Cooma Cottage, Yass
Queensland
1957, 1965, 1968 Johnstone Galleries, Brisbane
1991 Queensland Landscapes, touring
1993 Waterfront Place, Brisbane
1994 Upstairs Gallery, Cairns
1997, 1999 Whitepatch Gallery, Bribie Is.
South Australia
1964 Society of Artists, Adelaide
1966 North Adelaide Galleries
1971 Barn Gallery, McLaren Vale
1985 Beehive Corner Gallery, Adelaide
1988, 1990, 1993, 1996, 1999 Barry Newton Gallery, Adelaide
2002, 2005 Barry Newton Gallery, Adelaide
Tasmania
1964 Hobart
1969 Art Centre Hobart
1991 Freeman Gallery Hobart
1999 City of Hobart
Victoria
1974, 1984, 1987, 1991, 1994, 1998 Australian Galleries, Melbourne
1979 Swan Hill
1980 Greythorn Galleries, Melbourne
1992, 1993 Bradshaw Fine Art, Highway Gallery, Mt Waverley
1993 Bradshaw Fine Art, Victorian Artists Society, Melbourne
1996 Editions Galleries, Melbourne
1997, 1998, Greythorn Galleries, Melbourne
2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2008, Greythorn Galleries, Melbourne
2005 Adam Galleries, Melbourne
2010 Adam Galleries, Melbourne
2011 Union Studio, Castlemaine
2012 Cotham Gallery 101 Kew
2013 Metropolis Gallery, Geelong
2013 Echuca Regional Library
2014 Koppamurra Gallery, Adelaide
Western Australia
1976 Lister Gallery, Perth
International
Isle of Man
2003 Art Gallery, Douglas
London
1975 Leicester Galleries
Retrospective Exhibitions
1970 Adelaide Festival
1978 Adelaide Festival
1988 Australian Galleries, Melbourne
1999 Melbourne High School
2010 Bundoora Homestead, Melbourne
2011 Castlemaine Art Gallery
2012 Bayside Gallery Brighton
