Alexander Young Jackson

Alexander Young Jackson (1882-1974), Canadian painter, best known for his late winter and autumn landscapes. Jackson was a member of the Group of Seven, a group of artists who set out to create a distinctly Canadian art.

Jackson was born in Montréal, Québec. He worked as a commercial artist from 1895 to 1906 and took night courses at the Council of Arts and Manufactures in Montréal and at the Art Institute of Chicago in Illinois. In 1907 he enrolled at the Académie Julian (Julian Academy) in Paris, France, where he worked extensively in a rigorously textured impressionist mode (see Impressionism).

Jackson returned to Montréal in 1913 and later that year moved to Toronto, Ontario, at the invitation of painter Lawren Harris. Jackson painted with artist Tom Thomson in Algonquin Park, where Jackson painted landscapes, such as The Red Maple (1914, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa). In 1915, during World War I, Jackson enlisted in the Canadian army. After being wounded in France in 1916, he painted Canadian military sites in England and France for the Canadian War Memorials, a private agency that commissioned works of art commemorating Canada’s contributions to the war effort. In 1919 he returned to Toronto and renewed his friendships with the artists there. Thomson had drowned in 1917, but Jackson and Harris banded with other painters to form the Group of Seven in Toronto in 1920. As the sole Montréaler in the group, Jackson developed strong alliances with other Montréal artists.

Jackson painted in almost every region of Canada, including Québec, Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories, and the Arctic. He favored sketching in the seasons of late winter, early spring, and autumn. Jackson’s work showed impressionist influences, but his style became bolder and he employed more restrained colors after the early 1920s. He continued to live and work in Toronto into the 1950s, becoming an extremely influential figure in Canadian art.