Jack Shadbolt

Jack Shadbolt is one of the oldest artists in the contemporary collection. He was born in England but grew up in Victoria. His family was very poor; his father was a craftsman and his mother a dressmaker. Shadbolt was a major force in bringing new ideas, particularly abstraction, to BC art. Unlike a lot of abstract artists his work was always rooted in BC, either by recreating a sense of the landscape or through the use of local motifs such as his owl series. He died in 1998.