F. Ernest Jackson ARA was a British painter, draughtsman

Draughtsman

A draughtsman or draftsman , is a person skilled in drawing, either:*drawing for artistic purposes, or*technical drawing for practical purposes such as architecture or engineering...

, poster designer and lithographer.

Background

Francis Ernest Jackson was born on 15 August 1872 in Huddersfield

Huddersfield

Huddersfield is a large market town within the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, in West Yorkshire, England, situated halfway between Leeds and Manchester. It lies north of London, and south of Bradford, the nearest city....

, the son of a printer. He was apprenticed as a lithographer, and later attended life-drawing classes at the Yorkshire College. He then studied in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 at the Académie Julian

Académie Julian

The Académie Julian was an art school in Paris, France.Rodolphe Julian established the Académie Julian in 1868 at the Passage des Panoramas, as a private studio school for art students. The Académie Julian not only prepared students to the exams at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, but offered...

 and the École des Beaux-Arts

École des Beaux-Arts

École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...

 under Bouguereau, Ferrier, J.-P. Laurens and Constant.

On his return to Britain he designed posters and practised lithography. In 1907 he became a co-founder of The Neolith and member of the Senefelder Club

Senefelder Club

The Senefelder Club is an organisation formed in London in 1909 to promote the craft of art reproduction by the process of lithography.The club was named in honour of Aloys Senefelder, who in 1798 invented the lithographic process....

.

Between 1913 and 1925 Jackson designed poster

Poster

A poster is any piece of printed paper designed to be attached to a wall or vertical surface. Typically posters include both textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or wholly text. Posters are designed to be both eye-catching and informative. Posters may be...

s for the London Underground

London Underground

The London Underground is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England...

. In addition, throughout the First World War, he was in charge of propaganda

Propaganda

Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....

 lithography for the Ministry of Information.

In 1944 he was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy.

He died at Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

, on 11 March 1945 following a road accident.

A memorial exhibition to Jackson was held at the at the Beaux Arts Gallery

Beaux Arts Gallery

Beaux Arts Gallery, London, England, founded in 1923 and closed in 1965, was known as a preeminent center for promoting avant-garde art.Founded and operated by portrait sculptor Frederick Lessore in 1923, the gallery was run by his wife Helen Lessore, a painter, until it closed in 1965...

in 1946.

Philosophy of Art

Discussing his influence on him, Lancelot Glasson wrote in 1947 that "his thoughts on Art, and on Life, of which he deemed Art to the expression, were based, not on abstract thinking nor on his own more than ordinary erudition, but on that understanding which the daily practice of a craft gives to man." He himself believed unity to be the first quality of any picture, in which the simplest conception will be found always to be the most beautiful. Reality and art were not connected, but running in parallel one unto the other, and therefore in the final conception of the painting there ought to be no instant of accident, as though nature itself were allowed a role in the process.