Jack M. Ducker (years flourished 1910–1930) was a European
painter
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ...
(possibly of
Scottish origin) who specialized in Scottish
highland
Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region, elevated mountainous plateau or high hills. Generally speaking, upland (or uplands) refers to ranges of hills, typically from up to while highland (or highlands) is ...
landscapes
A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the p ...
.
Although most of the artist's documented works are undated they are thought to have been created from about 1910 through 1930, with at least one oil on canvas attributed to the late 19th century by Christie's auction house. Little is known about Ducker personally, though dozens of the artist's works have been sold at
auction
An auction is usually a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bids, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder or buying the item from the lowest bidder. Some exceptions to this definition e ...
(including sales at
Bonhams
Bonhams is a privately owned international auction house and one of the world's oldest and largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques. It was formed by the merger in November 2001 of Bonhams & Brooks and Phillips Son & Neale. This brought to ...
and
Christie's
Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is owned by Groupe Artémi ...
, in addition to a number of other auction houses). Ducker is interchangeably known in art-reference sources as J. Ducker, J. M. Ducker, Jack Ducker, and Jack M. Ducker, and possibly as John or James Ducker.
Artwork
Ducker's
Barbizon
Barbizon () is a commune (town) in the Seine-et-Marne department in north-central France. It is located near the Fontainebleau Forest.
Demographics
The inhabitants are called ''Barbizonais''.
Art history
The Barbizon school of painters is nam ...
- and British-influenced landscapes emphasize various qualities of the Scottish and British countrysides.
[Locations of Ducker's subjects documented i]
Christie's sales archive
Many of the painter's documented artworks feature a muddy, earthy color palette with emphasis on the atmospheric and rusty color spectrum that the
Scottish highland
The Highlands ( sco, the Hielands; gd, a’ Ghàidhealtachd , 'the place of the Gaels') is a historical region of Scotland. Culturally, the Highlands and the Lowlands diverged from the Late Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland S ...
mountains provide.
[Images of various artworks are documented on Websites such a]
Askart.com
Liveauctioneers.com
an
Christies.com
etc., under the search query "Ducker." Ducker's scenes are frequently idyllic and evoke a similar compositional structure.
Rocky mountains are often a focal point, with additional emphasis on other natural objects such as gnarled leafy trees, short shrubs, tall green grasses, and placid lakes and ponds.
On occasion Ducker includes
wildfowl
The Anatidae are the biological family of water birds that includes ducks, geese, and swans. The family has a cosmopolitan distribution, occurring on all the world's continents except Antarctica. These birds are adapted for swimming, floating on ...
and grazing animals, such as sheep, and the farmers who tend them. Much of Ducker's documented brushwork is moderately tight with carefully controlled minute details applied with a fine brush or like instrument. Within the documented paintings, Ducker tends to sign in the lower left or right corners of the canvas with the signature "JMDucker" or "JDucker" – occasionally underlining the surname.
Alternative artist name
There is no mention above of using online family history resources to research Jack. M. Ducker. An attempt to find 'Jack Ducker' or 'John Ducker' working as an artist in the Census Returns of England and Wales 1911 during 2022 proved fruitless. There is however an artist named Jacob Maurice Ducker who was living at 2 Stanley Buildings, Pancras Road, Kings Cross, London in that census. Further research shows him as an artist in the 1921 census, and in 1929 at the marriage of his step-son. This research is documented in Jacob Maurice Ducker's profile a
WikiTree
See also
*
List of painters by name
The following list of painters by name includes about 3,400 painters from all ages and parts of the world.
See also
*Lists of painters
*Lists of painters by nationality
* List of modern artists
* List of contemporary artists
*List of 20th-centur ...
*
List of Scottish artists
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ducker, Jack M.
Year of birth missing
Place of birth missing
Year of death missing
Place of death missing
19th-century births
19th-century Scottish painters
Scottish male painters
19th-century Scottish people
20th-century deaths
20th-century Scottish painters
20th-century Scottish people
Scottish landscape painters
19th-century Scottish male artists
20th-century Scottish male artists