Works by AY Jackson from the 1930s

Virgil Hammock is president of the Canadian section of the International
Association of Art Critics and Chairman of the Department of Fine Arts
at Mount Allison University.

The foreword to this book notes that it is essentially a revision of an
essay from Art Carleton, which I reviewed for CBRA 1989. In that review
I wrote, “I particularly enjoyed Naomi Jackson Groves’s ‘Works by
A.Y. Jackson in the Carleton University Art Collection.’ ” This is
unusual for me, since I am not an admirer of Jackson’s painting, but
Groves (A.Y.’s niece) is a fine writer. She taught German at Carleton
from 1943 to 1945, then completed a Ph.D. in art history at Harvard. She
brings a special insight to her uncle’s work, and through her the
reader gains a better understanding of Jackson’s art. She writes in
detail about the actual works, offering not a dull formal analysis, but
an examination of both the paintings and the artist that places these
works in the context of Canadian art history and social history. This
inexpensive paperback reprint of Groves’s essay makes it available to
readers who would not normally buy an expensive hardbound book like Art
Carleton.