Alexander Brooks Jackson (April 18, 1925 – March 23, 1981)
Special Collections & University Archives, Old Dominion University. was an American painter.

Life and career

Jackson was born in

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134 ...

, the son of a black father and an English mother who was born in

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

, England."A.B. Jackson"
, ''Quest'',

Old Dominion University Old Dominion University (Old Dominion or ODU) is a public research university in Norfolk, Virginia. It was established in 1930 as the Norfolk Division of the College of William & Mary and is now one of the largest universities in Virginia w ...

. He earned BFA and MFA degrees from

Yale University Yale University is a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Sta ...

, studying with

Josef Albers Josef Albers (; ; March 19, 1888March 25, 1976) was a German-born artist and educator. The first living artist to be given a solo show at MoMA and at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, he taught at the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College ...

in the mid-1950s. Before entering the teaching field, he spent three years as a designer in the Watson-Manning Advertising Agency in Stratford, Connecticut. He taught briefly at Southern University in

Baton Rouge, Louisiana Baton Rouge ( ; ) is a city in and the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. Located the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, it is the parish seat of East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana's most populous parish—the equivalent of counties ...

in 1955, before moving to Norfolk, Virginia in 1956. In 1967, after teaching 10 years at Norfolk State, he joined

(ODU) as a full professor and its first black faculty member. During his teaching years, Jackson also exhibited his art in many local and neighboring venues.George Paaswell
"Exhibit Offers Study Of A Vanishing Culture; Works Of A.b. Jackson At Suffolk Museum"
''Daily Press'', February 2, 1990. After being denied entry to the Virginia Beach Boardwalk Art show in 1962 because of his race, he won best-in-show there in 1966. He received significant attention in 1968 when several of his drawings were included in a

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

traveling art exhibition. Influenced by Rembrandt, Jackson worked in a range of materials, including watercolors, pastels, charcoal and acrylic. His series of paintings "The Porch People" depicts anonymous sitters on their porches in Ghent, the district of Norfolk, Virginia, where he lived. His book ''As I See Ghent: A Visual Essay'' was published in 1979. Jackson died in 1981 at the age of 55. He is represented in the permanent collections of: * Mint Museum of Art *

University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia. Founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, the university is ranked among the top academic institutions in the United States, with highly selective ad ...

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

Dartmouth College Dartmouth College (; ) is a private research university in Hanover, New Hampshire. Established in 1769 by Eleazar Wheelock, it is one of the nine colonial colleges chartered before the American Revolution. Although founded to educate Native ...

Museum *

Howard University Howard University (Howard) is a Private university, private, University charter#Federal, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, classifie ...

* North Carolina State University *

* Longwood College *Louisiana Arts & Sciences Museum *

Muscarelle Museum of Art The Muscarelle Museum of Art is a university museum affiliated with the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. While the Museum only dates to 1983, the university art collection has been in existence since its first gift – a por ...

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, or VMFA, is an art museum in Richmond, Virginia, United States, which opened in 1936. The museum is owned and operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Private donations, endowments, and funds are used for the s ...

* Chrysler Museum of Art (three-site retrospective exhibition) *

Legacy

''Passerby: An A.B. Jackson Retrospective'' showed at ODU's Baron and Ellin Gordon Art Galleries from May 23 to August 2, 2015."Upcoming events"
The Baron and Ellin Gordon Art Galleries, Old Dominion University.

Personal life

Jackson was the maternal grandfather of professional

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

quarterback Russell Wilson.

References

External links

"The Papers of A.B. Jackson: Biography"
Special Collections & University Archives, Old Dominion University Libraries.
"Norfolk Artist AB Jackson, Porch People and Passersby Video"
YouTube.
"Alexander Brooks 'A.B.' Jackson"
Special Collections and University Archives Wiki, Old Dominion University Libraries {{DEFAULTSORT:Jackson, A. B. 20th-century American painters Yale School of Art alumni Old Dominion University faculty American people of English descent 1981 deaths 1925 births 20th-century African-American painters 20th-century American male artists Artists from New Haven, Connecticut Painters from Connecticut