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Everett Gee Jackson/San Diego Modern, 1920–1955November 3, 2007—February 10, 2008 This major retrospective organized by SDMA presents the work of Everett Gee Jackson, San Diego’s most important Modernist artist. Featuring more than 50 works that span the most significant and productive decades of the artist’s career, San Diego Modern presents a representative range of Jackson’s multi-faceted work, while contextualizing Jackson within the broader scope of mid-twentieth century American modernism. The exhibition presents a biographical overview of Jackson’s vast artistic production and includes many of his most noteworthy paintings, lithographs, and drawings. Highlighting key moments of his life, San Diego Modern also reveals how Jackson’s encounter with Mexican art—both ancient and avant-garde—influenced his transformation from an impressionist into a modernist artist. Born in Mexia, Texas, in 1900, Jackson came to San Diego after studying at Texas A & M University and the Art Institute of Chicago. He continued his studies at San Diego State College, where he later taught and became head of the art department. As a young man in his twenties, Jackson was one of the first Americans to visit Mexico after the country’s prolonged social and cultural revolution. While there, he became influenced by artists such as Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco, as well as the Mexican Mural movement. As a result, stylized forms and Mexican motifs became dominant in Jackson’s work, and his new artistic inclination towards realism began to form the basis of his modernist style. A gifted artist and popular teacher, Jackson’s legacy in San Diego was pervasive in his own day and has had long-lasting impact. As one of the founding artists of the Contemporary Artists of San Diego, the region’s first professional artists’ organization, created in 1929, he staked out a course for vanguard art making in the region. Jackson also taught renowned conceptual artist John Baldessari and founded SDMA’s Latin American Arts Committee. Everett Gee Jackson/San Diego Modern, 1920–1955 is made possible by the generosity of the L. J. Skaggs and Mary C. Skaggs Foundation, the SDMA Artists’ Guild, the Latin American Arts Committee, Mr. Philip Klauber, Mr. Robert J. Watkins, and Mrs. Mary H. Clark. Additional support is provided by the City of San Diego Commission for Arts and Culture, the County of San Diego Community Enhancement Program, and members of the San Diego Museum of Art.
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