Jack Shadbolt

Originally from Victoria, Jack Shadbolt spent the majority of his career in Vancouver. He first met Emily Carr in the early 1930s through another young Victoria artist, Max Maynard. Both men saw her work in the 1930 Island Arts and Crafts Society exhibition and were impressed with her progressive approach to painting compared to her contemporaries in Victoria. Certainly Shadbolt's early work demonstrates an affinity with Carr's painting, and he credited his early interest in primitivism to seeing Carr's totem works.

Born in England in 1909, Shadbolt moved with his family to Victoria in 1912. In 1932, he exhibited along with Emily Carr at the Island Arts and Crafts Society's Modern Room. Shortly thereafter he left Victoria to travel in the United States, where he met the Mexican painter and muralist, Diego Rivera. When he returned to Canada, Shadbolt joined the faculty of the Vancouver Art School in 1937, teaching painting and drawing until 1966. During the war, he served as a war artist. His paintings from the war and postwar period were mostly ink and watercolour and dealt with urban themes portraying powerful social messages. In 1948, he had a brief but important stint in New York at the Art Students League with the influential Abstractionist Hans Hofmann. Through his use of oil paint in the 1950s and 60s, Shadbolt developed his unique style of abstraction. Later, his art became a celebration of the act of creation itself. In addition to being regarded as a respected teacher, Shadbolt had numerous exhibitions and mural commissions, and represented Canada at the Venice and Sao Paulo Art Biennials.