Meadowlark Gallery: The Artist Biographies

Harry Jackson
Harry Jackson was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1924. At the age of fourteen, he hopped a train for Wyoming and became a cowboy. Encouraged by a local artist, he was soon proficient enough to serve as the youngest official combat artist for the Marines in World War II. After the war, he studied painting with the Abstract Expressionists in New York City. A trip to Italy in 1954 returned him to realistic themes, and in 1956 he was commissioned to paint two heroic scenes of the American West. Among his studies for the paintings were figures in wax. When the patron saw the waxes, he ordered them cast in bronze, and Jackson became a fulltime sculptor. His 1960 New York City show helped pay for the studio in Wyoming and the foundry in Italy. Jackson's bronzes are now in public collections around the world and have been featured in Life, Time, and Southwest Art. His commissions include heroic statues of historical subjects and portraits that are not always Western. He is a member of the National Academy of Western Art and the National Sculpture Society.
View high resolution images of works by Harry Jackson when available.