A.B. Jackson Oil Painting, ca. 1975
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GUEST:
This is a painting that was a gift to my late husband from the artist A.B. Jackson. And he was an African-American artist from Connecticut, I believe, and came to this area in the '60s to teach at Old Dominion University and Norfolk State.
APPRAISER:
What year did your husband acquire this from the artist?
GUEST:
I would say it was probably in the mid-'70s, because I think A.B. passed away in '81.
APPRAISER:
He is an African-American artist. His father was black and his mother was actually Irish.
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
In that sense, he's a biracial African-American artist, but he did face racism, unfortunately, in his artistic career. And we're talking about an artist who has roots here, who taught at Norfolk, who taught at Old Dominion University. In 1962, he tried to enter into the Virginia Beach Boardwalk Art Show, and he was denied entry.
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
Because of his race. And what happened was, about four years later, he enrolled again, and applied again to the show.
GUEST:
Yeah.
APPRAISER:
And at that time, not only was he accepted, but he also won best in show. The medium is oil on canvas.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
He used a kind of sensibility that was more old master in its inspiration. One of his favorite artists was Rembrandt, actually. He would take a lot of cues from the color tone of Rembrandt and from the light of Rembrandt. And even from the theme, this one has a lot of religiosity built into it. You can see down below, it says "parable," lower left.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
There is a little inscription on the back. I think it says, "He taught them to fly..."
GUEST:
"He fed them and they taught him to fly."
APPRAISER:
"...and they taught him to fly." It's subtle, it's not necessarily in-your-face religious lesson. It has more to do with a certain kind of subtle religiosity.
GUEST:
Mm-hmm.
APPRAISER:
A lot of his themes in his other paintings also were more subtle. They had more to do with feelings, his own experiences in life. Not necessarily being black, although he said, in himself, black is many colors.
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
His works don't come to auction that much, but I would probably put it at an estimate of $3,000 to $4,000 at auction.
GUEST:
Okay.
APPRAISER:
If insurance, I would probably put it a little bit more. Okay.
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