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Knox, John [Jack], RSA RSW RGI DLitt

1936 – 2015

Born in 1936, the only child of a master tailor, Alexander (Sandy) Knox, Jack attended Lenzie Academy before going on to study at Glasgow School of Art (1953-57) and at the Andre L'hote Atelier, Paris (1958-59). Elected as a member of the RGI in 1980 and RSW in 1987, he lectured in Drawing and Painting at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art from 1965 to 1981 and was Head of Painting Studios at Glasgow School of Art from 1981 - 1992. Elected ARSA in 1972 and full Academician in 1979, he served as the Academy's Secretary between 1990-91. Jack has won numerous awards including the following; 1970 Scottish Arts Council Award 1980 Cargill Award RGI 1998 Maude Gemmell Hutchison Prize RSA 2004 Maude Gemmell Hutchison Award for Animal Drawing RSA 2004 Alexander Graham Munro Award RSW He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Glasgow University c.2007. He exhibited widely with many solo exhibitions including The Scottish Gallery,Edinburgh; Serpentine Gallery, London; Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh; Buckingham Gallery, London. His work has illustrated many books including The Scottish Bestiary by George Mackay Brown and La Pontiniere by David and Hilary Brown (http://www.galleryq.co.uk/manufacturer.php?id_manufacturer=106/ RGI and RSW official websites and that of Glasgow Art Dealer Duncan R.Miller - sourced 2015-04-14) KNOX Jack (RSA), on Sunday, April 12, 2015, in Ninewells Hospital, beloved husband of Margaret, loving father of Kyle and Emily, father-in-law to Mhairi and Roderick and adoring grandpa of Duncan and Sandy. Funeral at Dundee Crematorium at 10.15 a.m., on Monday, April 20, to which all family and friends are invited. A collection will be made for Alzheimer's Research. (death notice, Dundee Courier, 2015-04-15) Obituary 190th RSA Annual Exhibition catalogue (p.77): "Jack Knox RSA (1936-2015) Jack Knox. What a marvellous name that is; clear, resonant, to the point - like a Jack Knox painting. Few modern artists have taken greater pleasure in trhe purely visual than he: a basket of bread, a glass of wine, a bowl of oysters - beautiful things would entrance him. He looked, he contemplated, and then - quite quickly - made permanent the essence of what he had seen. In doing this Jack painted some of the most delightful Scottish paintings of the twentieth century. Jack made the ordinary extraordinary, and he is a much more original artist than his often traditional subject-matter, his quiet realism, might suggest. No genuine artist needs to bend over backwards to be original, and Jack Knox remained true to his inimitable Glaswegian self. 'Monet is only an eye - but, my God, what an eye!', said Cezanne. Jack Knox was more than an eye, but 'my God, what an eye!' Clarity of form, shallow space and saturated colours were his hallmark. His paintings tend to be medium sized or small. His touch was deft, his exhibitions full of surprises. Jack Knox had something of the Archie Gemmell about him. Born in Kirkintilloch, he studied Painting at Glasgow School of Art; Alasdair Gray, Ian McCulloch, Archie McIntosh and Ewan McAslan were his close friends. A postgraduate scholarship then tookhim to Paris, where he boldly attached himself to the Atelier of Andre Lhotte (a late Cubist who had worked closely Picasso and Braque [sic]). When he returned - Glaswegian bravura, European Modernism and a naturally idiosyncratic personality (at once innovcent, intellectual and humporous) conjoined to create a truly distinctive artist. I remember how thrilled Jack was to hear Hamish Henderson quote from a Burns' letter to George Thomson; 'Let our national music preserve its native features, they are, I own, frequently wild and irreducible to the more modern rules but on their very eccentricity, perhaps, depend a great deal of their affect.' And there is sometihng irreducible in Jack's work that marks it indelibly and poetically Scottish. In 1965 he was appointed a lecturer at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art. There he worked closely with Alberto Morrocco, David McClure, Dennis Buchan, Peter Collins and Grant Clifford. He took Third Year students regularly, to Holland, and, during trhe 1970s, began painting white table-clothes [sic], stacked cheeses, coffee pots, frozen raspberries that took on the monumentality of the pyramids of Egypt! And he revitalised still-life painting in Scotland. Waiting for the Dundee train on Carnoustie station, he would look out onto the beach that William McTaggart had painted (raw, with wind, wave and weather!): Jack Knox painted something very differnt - a single beach hut as a huge, psychodelic, many-coloured tableau of delight! Such works stand strong beside those of David Hockney. In 1981 he became Head of Painting at Glasgow School of Art. Consequently the School experienced a second Golden Age. A new geenratipon of 'Glasgow Boys' - a talented array of gifted students who were, in many ways, 'His Boys' - sent shock-waves of figurative renewal round the globe. Jack gave his colleague Sandy Moffat great freedom - and the GSA palyed a crucial part in the success of Glasgow as European City of Culture, in 1990. Having one of Mackintosh's great studios to himself, Jack became, briefly, a more gestural and narrative painter - with humour part of his armoury (very necessary in the battlefield, Art College politics can become). From their home in Bearsden, Jack and his wife Margaret Sutherland, holidayed frequently on Arran. The result was a series of small pastels of stunning intensity: blue seas, the measured mile, grouse under gorse bushes, a heron alone on the shore, heather burnings on the mountains...This was a various man and, after taking early retirement, in 1995 Jack returned to the East, to Broughty Ferry. Jack Knox was an artist's artist. Like many a Scots painter, he felt a special affinity with France and French pleasure in life. Like Henri Matisse he wanted his paintings to be 'armchairs to rest in', sources of thoughtful joy. Jack was civilised man [sic], a stimulating teacher, a loyal friend. His humanity and his paintings stand with the best in Scot's History. Timothy Neat HRSA" Jack Knox RSA was elected Assocaite of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1972 and full Academician in 1979."



An image from the RSA collection.