About Jack Swanson

Realist and traditional painter and sculptor of the West, Jack was born in Duluth, Minnesota in 1927 and has lived in Carmel Valley, California, where he was raised. At fourteen he was already breaking horses. He served in the Navy for two years during WWII and then went to Oregon to work on ranches his father owned.

While attending the College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland under the G. I. Bill, he “seemed to be not getting along with modern-type art teachers who didn’t think horses were worth painting, but pots were” so he left school to race horses. When his “stud” pulled up lame, he tried the Carmel Art Institute and also had advice from National Academician watercolorist Donald Teague.

Swanson is an Emeritus member of the Cowboy Artists of America, is listed in Who’s Who in American Art, was written up in Ainsworth’s book The Cowboy in Art, and Peter Hassrick’s book Western Painting Today. It was an honor for him when President Ronald Reagan took one of his large vaquero paintings to the White House.

Source:
Archives of askART.com
Peggy & Harold Samuels Contemporary Western Artists, page 520.
Compiled and submitted by Julie Eynon, Biltmore Galleries