HARRY JACKSON (AMERICAN 1924-2011)

HARRY JACKSON (AMERICAN 1924-2011) Grace Hartigan, 1949 oil on canvas 151.5 x 91.2 cm (59 5/8 x 35 7/8 in.) signed and dated upper right PROVENANCEEstate of the artistEXHIBITEDCody, Buffalo Bill Historical Center, "Harry Jackson: A Retrospective Exhibition", May 1-September 24, 1981 (label on verso stretcher)LITERATURELarry Pointer, Donald Goddard, Harry Jackson (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1981), p. 51, no. 56 (illustrated) LOT NOTESIn his unparalleled creative trajectory from realism to abstraction to realism again, Harry Jackson - as perhaps no other American artist of the period - embodies the spirit of relentless inquiry that came to define the art of the 20th century. One of the most prolific and significant Western artists of his generation, Jackson also produced an immensely diverse body of work, represented in lots 133-135, including two important canvases from his Abstract Expressionist period.Prior to settling in Wyoming to make his best-known work, Chicago-born Jackson had served in World War II as a combat Marine artist, awarded a Purple Heart, and, in 1944, stationed in Los Angeles. Soon after, he saw Jackson Pollock's The Moon-Woman Cuts the Circle and The She-Wolf, which impressed him profoundly. Determined to meet Pollock, Jackson moved to New York, where he became a close friend of the artist and gained notoriety for his own Abstract Expressionist works, capturing the attention of Clement Greenberg and Meyer Shapiro (who featured him in their Talent 1950 show at the Kootz Gallery) and later exhibiting at Tibor de Nagy Gallery.Eventually, Jackson's childhood fascination with cowboys (he, aged 14, had run away from home to a Wyoming farm), his academic training at the Art Institute of Chicago, and a 1954 tour through Italy reinvigorated Jackson's interest in Realism. Perspective and modeling, infused with the ethos of abstraction, made their way into his works. During a second trip to Italy in 1956, Jackson began studying sculpture at the Vignali-Tommasi Foundry, producing the first of his Western bronzes in the tradition of Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell. He made trips to both the American West and Europe throughout the 1950s and 60s, setting up his own foundry and finally relocating his studio to Wyoming in 1970.The present portrait of Grace Hartigan, a fellow second-generation Abstract Expressionist, to whom Jackson was married in 1949, is an exquisite example of Jackson's dynamic work, of the kind hailed by New York Times critic Stuart Preston for the buoyant, generous and intricate arabesque of shapes and... the freshness and pungency of... color. The connection between the artist and his wife-model, a short but explosive affair by many personal accounts, make this painting a perfect encapsulation of the predominant art movement of the time.