Internationally known North Bay artist Jack Lockhart is proud to announce a major milestone.
This year Lockhart is celebrating 60 years in the profession.
“That’s more in the sense of being a professional artist, selling paintings. So it is going back a long way, covering thousands of paintings during that time. An awful lot of commissions, and the fact that the paintings have gone all over the place, which is very rewarding to see where they’ve gone and who has purchased them,” Lockhart stated.
His paintings have been purchased by politicians, actors, professional athletes, and collectors in North Bay and around the world.
A small cross-section of familiar names who own a piece of Lockhart’s artwork is former Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, retired NHL great Bobby Orr, Canadian actor, and tenor singer Michael Burgess, American actress, and producer Gail O’Grady, and devoted fans back home in North Bay and area.
“That’s one of the huge advantages of doing the art, the people that you meet. Jeff Sluman’s father bought one of my paintings.”
Sluman is known for his play on the PGA Tour.
Lockhart celebrated his 60-year success Sunday with an art sale at the Davedi Club, showcasing 150 original paintings consisting of oils, watercolours and acrylics from realism to the abstract, in a variety of sizes.
His last art show was five years ago.
“With COVID, there was a span of time where nothing was really going on in terms of going to galleries, so we had a lot of time to work. We produced a lot of paintings in that downtime. We were busy as ever creating work which is here today.”
Lockhart first picked up a paintbrush when he was just a young lad in kindergarten.
“I was only six years old but in art class, I did a picture of the town of Fort Francis, where I grew up, and I did a pictorial map with the firehall, the police station, the jail that was across the street from us, various places and the streets,” explained Lockhart.
“The teacher I had back then got excited about it and she took the painting and went through the whole school, with 800 kids, and showed all the classes my art at that stage, and I thought that was kind of neat to do that.”
A few years later, Lockhart took his talent to the street.
“In 1950 we had a tornado go through the Fort Francis area. When it went through, there was a corner lot, and that corner lot had 16 Manitoba maple trees,” Lockhart reflected.
“When that tornado hit, the workmen came and they cut the trees down that were broken, and they left these nice smooth tree stumps. I came home from school one day, in grade one or two, whatever it was and I took out my crayons and created scenes on every one of them. Then I sat back later on and watched because people coming home from work would get down on their knees and they’d start looking at one, then move on to the next one. It was like my first art show,” Lockhart said laughing.
He has had many, many more shows over the past 60 years, selling countless paintings.
Now retired after 31 years as a school principal, Lockhart continues to teach and learn as an art instructor, offering group workshops and private lessons.
He would like to see more attention given to the arts in schools.
“One time I had the opportunity to talk to Ken Danby, one of Canada’s best artists when he was alive, and we got talking about that, about how important it is to allow students to get into the skills of painting. Because when you go over to Europe and you look at history, they didn’t have a lot of cameras back in those days, but they all have beautiful paintings. And those paintings always are giving the history of the town or the battle of this or that. That’s how they recorded history. It’s all art, and we don’t seem to stress that now, recording certain events through art that we should be doing. Photographs are fine, but it is your impression of what you’re seeing that is the important thing. So I’ve always said I would like to see much more being done in the schools to do this. ”
Lockhart has given demonstrations in schools all across Ontario, from elementary through to post-secondary.
“That’s been great because you can see the interest that they have, and they’re watching you do the demonstration, and the questions they ask, how important that is. “
Lockhart admits his own style is all over the map.
“I’ve got realism, right to the abstract. I find that when I have done a very tight, realistic scene, I need to loosen up again. And I have more of a chance of doing that if I get into an abstract. It is more free-flowing and more prone to be very creative and that really helps.”
One particular painting he holds dear is one he refers to as The Man in the Canoe.
The original hangs in his living room, but it has also been shown in magazines and various brochures.
“That is probably one of my favourite paintings because it typifies northern Ontario, and it had so much to do with how peaceful it is being out on your own, being out on the water with no distractions, and how fun it is. And so anybody who looks at it, they relate to that painting.”
Lockhart mostly paints from the heart and what comes to mind.
“But I do take a lot of photographs as reference. Now if I’m doing a historical building or a commission for someone that is very special like that, I will take several pictures because when I go to sit down to do the painting itself, I have to know exactly where that tree was or how far away from the building it was.”
His preference is watercolour over oil.
“What I found was when I started, I started with oils because of the bright colours, strong colours. That was always really important. But the problem is, with the oils, it takes longer to dry. And I’m always waiting in a hurry,” laughed Lockhart.
“Watercolour has a huge advantage because of the spontaneous things that would happen in watercolour, that you can’t get in any other medium, and that is a big advantage.”
His go-to themes are nature and travel.
“We’ve travelled a good chunk of the world, and I’m always on the lookout for some scene or something that might make an interesting painting.”
Lockhart is blessed to be able to continue doing what he loves, six decades later.
“I’d like to keep painting till I can’t paint anymore. I found that I looked at some of The Group of Seven for example and there was an old building in the painting and I remember one person saying he used to paint high realism, and I said yeah but his hand shakes now. Or his eyesight is not as good and so it becomes more simplistic. It doesn’t take away from anything but it is a different form of what he is doing.”
Jack has posted a number of his pictures on his website to view or purchase.
