Jackson, A. Y.

Jackson, A. Y. ( Alexander Young Jackson) (1882–1974). Canadian landscape painter, born in Montreal and active mainly in Toronto, where he settled in 1913 after extensive travels in Europe (1905, 1907–9, and 1911–13). Jackson was one of the leading artists of the Group of Seven and in the latter part of his long career he became a venerated senior figure in Canadian painting. He visited almost every region of Canada, including the Arctic, and responded particularly to the hilly region of rural Quebec along the St Lawrence River. From 1921 he visited the area almost every spring, and the canvases he produced from sketches made there are regarded as his finest works. Their easy, rolling rhythms and rich colouring influenced many other Canadian landscape painters. Jackson moved to Ottawa in 1955 and in 1958 published his memoirs, A Painter's Country. He died at Kleinburg, Ontario.