Robert Jacks AO (1943–2014) is acknowledged as one of Australia's leading abstract artists. He studied at the Prahran Technical College and the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, focusing first on sculpture and then painting and printmaking. The artist travelled to Canada and New York in the 1960s, living in this nexus of the avant-garde, and working with notable conceptual and abstract artists such as Sol LeWitt. In 1978 Jacks became artist-in-residence at the University of Melbourne before moving to Sydney, where he taught at Sydney's College of the Arts. Back in Melbourne by 1983, he continued to work and teach, and ultimately settled on a rural property near Harcourt in central Victoria. He maintained a prolific and consistent output throughout his career, exhibiting often. Jacks is represented in many major public, corporate and private Australian collections, and internationally, across which hundreds of his works are held.
This early and unique portrait of Jacks by Charina Forge (now Oeser) was painted at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in the early 1960s. Oeser's depiction of Jacks is an informal, relaxed portrait of a fellow student, created during the studio subject Head Painting. The artist remembers that where a paid model was not available, one of the students (or occasionally a lecturer) would volunteer to stand in as model.
Gift of the artist 2021
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