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.comLiveauctioneers.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

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

Artwork

Alternative artist name

See also

References