Jack Shadbolt
Nationality: British-born, Canadian
Born: 1909-02-04, Shoeburyness, England
Died: 1998-11-22

Born in England in 1909, Shadbolt established himself as an artist and teacher in Vancouver in the 1930's. Though he found inspiration for his early works in the paintings of Emily Carr, the west coast landscape, the American Social Realists, and the Mexican muralists, he also had an early interest in the British Surrealist artists Paul Nash and Graham Sutherland. Travel to Europe in the late 1930's put him in touch with works by Cézanne and the School of Paris.

During his stay in New York in 1948-49, he studied the work of Picasso and primitivism, the European Surrealists, especially Joan Miro, and the American Abstract Expressionists. From these contacts, he developed a biomorphic Surrealism, a strong thread which links all phases of his career. In 1938, Shadbolt began to teach at the Vancouver School of Art, where he remained until his retirement in 1966. Since then he has received an honourary LL.D. from Simon Fraser University, the University of British Columbia, and the University of Victoria. He received the Order of Canada in 1972, and was made Freeman of the City of Vancouver in 1990. Along with his wife, Doris Shadbolt, he created VIVA (the Vancouver Institute for the Visual Arts) in 1988.

Source: Vancouver Art Gallery Press Release