Billy Morrow Jackson: Interpretations of Time and Light

by Howard E. Wooden, Billy Morrow Jackson (Painter)

Here are nearly a hundred stunning reproductions (three-quarters in full color) of many of the Illinois prairie landscapes, as well as the cityscapes, townscapes, interior views, works with social and political themes, and murals done by Jackson over the past forty years, all of them reflecting his fascination with the subtle yet pervasive impact of time and light on art and on life. Howard Wooden surveys Jackson's stylistic and technical developments as an artist, beginning with his early black-and-white woodblock prints executed in Mexico in 1949 and 1950 and ending with three large murals painted in the late 1980s, one of which adorns the Illinois State Capitol. Jackson's work, which hangs in the National Museum of American Art, the National Gallery of Art, and the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., and in many other museums across America, feature images derived, but not copied, from reality. A brief essay by Jackson on his painting technique appears in an appendix.

Genres: Art

160 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1990

Reviews

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Billy Morrow Jackson was a notable Illinois artist. His fame in Champaign is starting to fade, for example the street he lived on in Champaign was designated "Honorary Billy Morrow Jackson Street", but the honorary signs were not included in the last update. Still, his murals in various UIUC campus buildings and at the Illinois capital will still delight and inform for some time to come.

This book was made fairly late in his career but while he was still alive. He still had several major murals ahead, but most of the major themes seemed established. It's a very staid looking book, with a quiet winter scene, sober typography, and rather self-serious text, giving a muted first impression when combined with Jackson's superficially old-fashioned subject matter.

Fortunately, Jackson's work is full of light and subtle ideas, and really no occasion with so much of it will do poorly. The book does a good job of balancing chronological and thematic organization. It has a good selection of work, situating the alignments and reactions of the artist's early development into the establishment of the ongoing themes that would pervade the artist's career. The book does a great job at establishing how these varied themes (including rural landscapes, composite city scenes, political drawings, indoor scenes, and collage-driven murals) all fit into the artist's civic and visual sensibility.

On the downside, it does go into this sensibility with little bit of a heavy hand, and perhaps a bit too long, given how strongly the work speaks for itself. The book even contradicts the work, describing one early print showing the patchwork of fields as describing a dynamic sky. The text also describes many hard-to-see aspects of the work given the size they are reproduced at, but could easily have included sections with enhanced detail. However, as critical as I am of the text otherwise, it is clear, coherent, and calls attention to the right details to understand the overall themes clearly.

My favorite part was the landscapes that were influenced by or parodied or both (it's hard to tell) Mark Rothko, where the dominating sky were great blocks of color, with the relatively realistic rural landscape hugging the bottom of the frame.