Over a six decade long career Oliver Jackson (b. 1935) has produced paintings, sculptures, and works on paper grounded in the figure but also deeply rooted in the abstract and the improvisational spirit of jazz. The intaglio print offered in this collection is an excellent example of the tension between chaos and coherence that Jackson’s work typifies. Half-formed figures appear only briefly amid a maelstrom of gestural marks, unable to escape the chaos contained within the frame.

Educated at Illinois Wesleyan University (BFA, 1958) and the University of Iowa (MFA, 1963), Jackson returned to St. Louis to teach and to engage in community-based art initiatives. He served as the assistant director of the People’s Art Center from 1963 to 64. The center, founded in 1942 through the WPA’s Federal Art Project, was established as the first fully integrated community arts center in St. Louis during a time of widespread segregation.

Jackson also established an arts program for the youth of the Pruitt-Igoe housing project and was a consultant for the Black Artists Group (Emilio Cruz directed the visual arts program). This group was established in St. Louis in 1968, to “make Black people more aware of their creative potential”, and shift their cultural frame of reference from white-dominated norms to Black-centered perspectives. The group was made up of musicians, dancers, theater artists, and visual artists.

Jackson relocated to Oakland, CA, to become a professor of art at the California State University, Sacramento, from 1971 until 2002, where he developed a curriculum for the Pan African Studies program. Throughout his career, he has collaborated with multidisciplinary artists across all genres, worked on large public commissions, and participated in numerous exhibitions to great public and critical acclaim. In 2023, he received the Lee Krasner Award for lifetime achievement by the Pollock Krasner Foundation.