Wyoming’s Artist: Harry Jackson Exhibition Opens at The Brinton Museum

The Brinton Museum in Big Horn has announced they will present the exhibition Wyoming’s Artist: Harry Jackson, opening in the S. K. Johnston, Jr. Family Gallery on May 18.

Jackson, Wyoming artist, cowboy folklorist and musical performer, was born April 18, 1924 in Chicago Ill. He died in 2011. This year 2024 marks what would have been Harry Jackson’s 100th birthday.

According to the Brinton, it’s not often an artist leaves such a heavy mark in society and on his legacy as the American artist Jackson. He was prolific in creating art and did so with an intensity that overflowed his studio with art. Sculptures, murals, paintings and even numerous drawings from childhood onward are part of the artist’s lifelong body of work.

Jackson is perhaps best known for his bronzes which include portraits of movie stars and presidents. However, his self-portrait canvases, works from the abstract expressionist period, and other genres serve as testament that he was interested in all mediums and forms of art. Following Jackson’s interest in abstract expressionism, he returned to realism, when in 1954 he journeyed to Europe to study the masters. Funded in part by a Fulbright Scholarship, Jackson embarked on a lifelong study through the art of “the copy.” He skillfully replicated dozens of works by the Old Masters. 

Jackson’s bond with the American painter Jackson Pollock, a leading force in the abstract expressionist movement –1943 to the mid-1950s– is the subject of an educational program presented by renowned curator, writer and art historian Henry Adams on May 17. 

Doors open at 5:30 p.m. and the lecture begins at 6 p.m. A ticketed dinner in the Brinton Bistro follows Adams’ lecture. 

Attendance of the lecture is free. Reservations for dinner can be made online, seating is limited. Contact the Brinton Museum at 307-672-3173.