Skip to main content

Jack Wilson Paintings

1919-1988

Jack Wilson was born in Sausalito and educated in San Francisco, he lived for many years in Los Gatos, until he died in 1988. Wilson’s style was to paint with knives that he made himself. Besides producing pieces that have hung in different local banks and international consulate offices, Wilson also provided illustrations for a 1968 land-use study that was conducted by the Lexington Hill Association and which was about development near the Lexington Reservoir. He loved painting maritime life as he observed it along the California coast, and his frequent subjects were seagulls, fishing boats and beachfront. But he also found inspiration in town, and over the years, his work appeared in different places in Los Gatos. In 1987, for example, he painted an 1890s railroad depot, which was used as the cover for the GTE telephone book for Los Gatos that year. A librarian from Los Gatos, Paul Kopach and some of Wilson’s friends had embarked on a project to digitize photographs of the artist’s work and put them online with some background information. The library had acquired the donated collection when Wilson’s friends turned it over to staff members, asking if there was a way of preserving the work. The art was destined for the garbage dump when a caretaker threw out boxes of his work when she was helping Wilson’s widow, Meta, move from Villa Vasona. An astute maintenance worker at Villa Vasona found the boxes and saved them. Marge Faucher, an artist who belonged to the same art guilds that Wilson was a part of, felt that the work is worth preserving because of his local ties. “He won many awards, and his style is distinctive,” Faucher said. Wilson’s style was to paint with knives that he made himself. As part of the collection handed over to the library, there are old newspaper clippings that promoted his exhibitions, letters from those who appreciated his art and various examples of his work. Faucher and Joyce Louden, a friend of Wilson’s wife, moved the preservation project along. They have done an inventory of everything they have found and are matching up photographs of the paintings with their titles. Louden herself was not familiar with Wilson before the boxes were found, but she felt that his talent is evident, and his name should be saved from obscurity. “I had never heard of Jack Wilson, but he did wonderful things,” she said. “We want to put the work online for the world to appreciate.”

(Biography provided by Robert Azensky Fine Art)

to
1
Overall Width
to
Overall Height
to
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
785
701
652
646
1
Artist: Jack Wilson
'Morning Sun', San Francisco Bay Area Modernist Harbor Scene, Seascape, Seafood
By Jack Wilson
Located in Santa Cruz, CA
'Morning Sun', San Francisco Bay Area Harbor Scene, Seascape, Seafood Signed lower right, 'Jack Wilson' (American, 1919-1988) and painted circa 1965; additionally signed, verso, ti...
Category

1960s Modern Jack Wilson Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Related Items
Gracie Mansion
By Isabella Banks Markell
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Gracie Mansion, c. 1944, oil on canvas, signed lower right, 25 x 30 inches, presented in a newer frame Isabella Markell was a painter, etcher, and sculptor, who is best known for ...
Category

1940s American Modern Jack Wilson Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Rainbow - Minimalistic Figurative Oil Painting, Beach View, Realism, Seascape
By Julita Malinowska
Located in Salzburg, AT
Artodyssey "Julita Malinowska's paintings belong to those, which once seen - are never forgotten. The open spaces, sometimes cool and bright, at other times heavily saturated with co...
Category

2010s Modern Jack Wilson Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

"London" Cityscape Oil Painting on Canvas by Denis Paul Noyer, Framed
By Denis Paul Noyer
Located in Encino, CA
"London," an original oil on canvas by Denis Paul Noyer, is a piece for the true collector. Noyer's capture of the architectural details of the surrounding buildings projects from th...
Category

1970s Modern Jack Wilson Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Untitled (Farm in Winter)
By Julius M. Delbos
Located in Los Angeles, CA
This work is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: Artists of the 1940s Untitled (Farm in Winter), 1940s, oil on canvas, signed lower right, 26 x 30 inches, presented in an original frame Julius Delbos...
Category

1940s American Modern Jack Wilson Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Six O'Clock
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Six O-Clock, c. 1942, oil on canvas, 30 x 20 inches, signed and titled several times verso of frame and stretcher (perhaps by another hand), marked “Rehn” several times on frame (for the Frank K. M. Rehn Galleries in New York City, who represented Craig at the time); Exhibited: 1) 18th Biennial Exhibition of Contemporary American Oil Paintings from March 21 to May 2, 1943 at The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. #87, original price $450 (per catalog) (exhibition label verso), 2) Craig’s one-man show at the Frank K. M. Rehn Galleries, New York City, from October 26 to November 14, 1942, #10 (original price listed as $350); and 3) Exhibition of thirty paintings sponsored by the Harrisburg Art Association at the State Museum of Pennsylvania in Harrisburg in March, 1944 (concerning this exhibit, Penelope Redd of The Evening News (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) wrote: “Other paintings that have overtones of superrealism inherent in the subjects include Tom Craig’s California nocturne, ‘Six O’Clock,’ two figures moving through the twilight . . . .” March 6, 1944, p. 13); another label verso from The Museum of Art of Toledo (Ohio): original frame: Provenance includes George Stern Gallery, Los Angeles, CA About the Painting Long before Chris Burden’s iconic installation outside of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Urban Light, another artist, Tom Craig, made Southern California streetlights the subject of one of his early 1940s paintings. Consisting of dozens of recycled streetlights from the 1920s and 1930s forming a classical colonnade at the museum’s entrance, Burden’s Urban Light has become a symbol of Los Angeles. For Burden, the streetlights represent what constitutes an advanced society, something “safe after dark and beautiful to behold.” It seems that Craig is playing on the same theme in Six O-Clock. Although we see two hunched figures trudging along the sidewalk at the end of a long day, the real stars of this painting are the streetlights which brighten the twilight and silhouette another iconic symbol of Los Angeles, the palm trees in the distance. Mountains in the background and the distant view of a suburban neighborhood join the streetlights and palm trees as classic subject matter for a California Scene painting, but Craig gives us a twist by depicting the scene not as a sun-drenched natural expanse. Rather, Craig uses thin layers of oil paint, mimicking the watercolor technique for which he is most famous, to show us the twinkling beauty of manmade light and the safety it affords. Although Southern California is a land of natural wonders, the interventions of humanity are already everywhere in Los Angeles and as one critic noted, the resulting painting has an air of “superrealism.” About the Artist Thomas Theodore Craig was a well-known fixture in the Southern California art scene. He was born in Upland California. Craig graduated with a degree in botany from Pomona College and studied painting at Pamona and the Chouinard Art School with Stanton MacDonald-Wright and Barse Miller among others. He became close friends with fellow artist Milford Zornes...
Category

1940s American Modern Jack Wilson Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Six O'Clock
H 20 in W 30 in D 2 in
Landscape
By Marcel Emile Cailliet
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Landscape, 1940, oil on canvas, 24 x 20 inches, signed, dated and titled verso: “Marcel Cailliet ’40 – S.C.” and “Marcel Cailliet Landscape”; likely exhibited at the annual juried st...
Category

1940s American Modern Jack Wilson Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Highway Derelict
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Highway Derelict, May, 1939, oil on canvas board, signed upper right, 18 x 20 inches, exhibited 1) Society of Independent Artists, American Society of Fine Arts (Art Students League), New York, NY, April 19 – May 12, 1940, no. 535 (noted verso, listed in catalog, and see Kantner, Dorothy, Palette Palaver, Pittsburgh Sun Telegraph, April 19, 1940 – “Helen F. Price and Ethel M. Dean, the former of Johnstown, the latter of this city, are two members of the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh who are represented in the Independent Artist’s Exhibition which opens today in New York. Miss Price is represented by . . . ‘Highway Derelict’ . . . .”), 2) Solo Exhibition of Log Cabin Paintings...
Category

1930s American Modern Jack Wilson Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Board

The Yacht KITSKAD Off Catalina Island
By J. Duncan Gleason
Located in Costa Mesa, CA
Duncan Gleason lived in New York and other places for work or studies but it was really Southern California where he felt most at home, and looking at his body of work, that love of ...
Category

1950s Modern Jack Wilson Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil, Board

Rites of Winter
By Georgina Klitgaard
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Rites of Winter, by 1939, oil on canvas, 32 x 40 inches, exhibited: 134th Annual Exhibition of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA, January 29 – March 5, 1939, no...
Category

1930s American Modern Jack Wilson Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Untitled (Collapsed Shacks)
By Karl Fortress
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Untitled (Collapsed Shacks), c. 1940s, oil on canvas, signed lower left, 20 ½ x 26 ½ inches, presented in a period frame This work is part of our exhibition America Coast to Coast: ...
Category

1940s American Modern Jack Wilson Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

A Corner of Barbados
By Joseph Stella
Located in Bryn Mawr, PA
Joseph Stella(1877-1946) A Corner of Barbados, 1937 Oil on canvas, 11 x 15 inches (27.9 x 38.1 cm) Inscribed on verso: A corner of / Barbados / O:P by / Joseph Stella Provenance The artist; By bequest to his nephew, Sergio Stella, 1946; By descent in the family, until the present Joseph Stella’s artistic career defies easy categorization. He was simultaneously a modernist and traditionalist, a dual citizen of the Old and New World, a bold experimenter and masterful practitioner of time-honored artistic techniques. His iconic paintings of New York City, such as the Brooklyn Bridge and Coney Island, celebrate modernity and the Machine Age, while his exuberant paintings of the natural world speak to the spiritual revelation that guided and grounded him throughout his life. Until recently, the divergent aspects of Stella’s career “confounded his legacy.” But in Joseph Stella: Visionary Nature, the multi-venue museum exhibition that focuses on the artist’s lifelong engagement with nature, a more complete and nuanced understanding of his career has emerged. Stella’s work of flora and fauna demonstrate his deep connection to and close observational study of nature to invigorate his creativity and sustain his human spirit. Indeed, nature was a salve to his woes about life and the modern age. He made countless drawings and paintings of flowers, many of which were done at the New York Botanical Garden – a favorite place for the artist. In these works, Stella explored new styles and pressed the limits of his imagination. Like nature itself, he was always changing, always growing. Stella found himself in Barbados in 1937, when then health of his wife had declined and she asked him to bring her home. He loved the island paradise, as it reawakened his creativity and love the natural world, much as his returns to Italy did. Although he remained in Barbados for only five months, the landscape he absorbed and the motifs he developed fueled his art for the next three years. The Barbados paintings...
Category

1930s American Modern Jack Wilson Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Figurative landscape oil painting- Old time
Located in Beijing, CN
Dai Xiangwen was born in Hunan in 1991 and graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts of Jianghan University, He is a member of China Artists Association, China Designers Association, a painter of Li Keran...
Category

2010s Modern Jack Wilson Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Previously Available Items
At the Train Station - Industrial Landscape
By Jack Wilson
Located in Soquel, CA
Bold industrial landscape by Jack Wilson (American, 1919-1988), featuring a steam train pulling into the station. This scene is filled with many details and warm vivid colors, and the horizontal composition conveys the sense of a panoramic view. Signed "JACK WILSON" in the lower right corner. Presented in a wood frame with a linen fillet. Canvas size: 20"H x 40"W Born in Sausalito and educated in San Francisco, Wilson lived for many years in Los Gatos...
Category

Late 20th Century American Impressionist Jack Wilson Paintings

Materials

Oil, Canvas

Jack Wilson "ABC Time" Oil Painting c.1966
By Jack Wilson
Located in San Francisco, CA
Jack Wilson "ABC Time" Oil Painting c.1966 Fine vintage geometric abstract oil painting signed and dated by Jack Wilson 1966. Original oil on canvas. The...
Category

Mid-20th Century Abstract Jack Wilson Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Jack Wilson "Harbor Bustle" Original Oil Painting c.1970
By Jack Wilson
Located in San Francisco, CA
Jack Wilson (1919-1988) Original Oil Painting Titled "Harbor Bustle" The scene is a harbor somewhere in California. This could be anywhere from Monterey t...
Category

Mid-20th Century Impressionist Jack Wilson Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Jack Wilson "The Backyard Gang" Original Palette Knife Painting c.1970
By Jack Wilson
Located in San Francisco, CA
Jack Wilson "The Backyard Gang" Original Palette Knife Painting c.1970 Jack Wilson (1919-1988) was an artist based in Los Gatos, California who was well known in the Bay Area for his palette knife painting technique. This wonderful painting shows a family of California Quail...
Category

Mid-20th Century Impressionist Jack Wilson Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

"Bodega Bay Wharf" Seascape
By Jack Wilson
Located in Soquel, CA
Harbor scene by Jack Wilson (American, 1919-1988). Signed "JACK WILSON" in the lower right corner. Artist's name ("JACK WILSON"), title ("BODEGA BAY WHARF")...
Category

1970s American Impressionist Jack Wilson Paintings

Materials

Oil, Fiberboard, Masonite

"Seafoam & Gulls" Seascape
By Jack Wilson
Located in Soquel, CA
Bold seascape by Jack Wilson (American, 1919-1988). Signed "JACK WILSON" in the lower right corner. Artist's name ("JACK WILSON"), title ("SEAFOAM & GULLS"...
Category

1970s American Impressionist Jack Wilson Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Oil

Jack Wilson paintings for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Jack Wilson paintings available for sale on 1stDibs. You can also browse by medium to find art by Jack Wilson in canvas, fabric, oil paint and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the Impressionist style. Not every interior allows for large Jack Wilson paintings, so small editions measuring 25 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of Morris Katz, Duane Albert Armstrong, and Doris Warner. Jack Wilson paintings prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $485 and tops out at $1,450, while the average work can sell for $1,135.

Recently Viewed

View All