Kenneth Jack brought more back from the war than stories of battle – he returned home with 500 drawings, some sketched as bullets whizzed past his head on the islands north of Australia as troops fought off the Japanese march toward our shores.
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Another unique artistic memento of his war service is an etching in perspex taken from the canopy of a wrecked aircraft from New Guinea, souvenired from an airfield Mr Jack and his fellow soldiers were defending.
These illustrations of Australians at war, and the landscapes they fought in, are part of the body of work that Kenneth Jack amassed during a lifetime of art.
Most of his work from World War II is now preserved at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, but Mr Jack continued on after the war capturing Australian landscapes and buildings.
“He would be on a landing craft with a piece of paper folded in quarters, and would draw and paint and look at tracer bullets going through the sky,” said son David, who has managed his father’s collection since Kenneth’s death in 2006.
“It’s like doing your masters of art under duress – he came back with nothing other than 500 pieces of paper.”
An exhibition of his work, the Kenneth Jack Retrospective, has opened at Ballarat’s Gallery on Sturt with more than 50 artworks on display from throughout his career.
Mr Jack worked across many artistic mediums, with the exhibition featuring oils, watercolours, pastels, lithographs, mezzotints, linocuts, etchings and a perspex engraving.
After returning from war, Mr Jack found a love for the ruggedness and harsh conditions of the Australian landscape and became renowned for the space, the depth, earthiness, structure, colour and rhythms of the land that were consistent themes in many of his works.
“He would travel all the time and his artworks of structures often featured outback buildings that were not going to be there the next time he came through.”
Kenneth Jack was also at the forefront of a resurgence in the popularity of print making and founded the printmaking and painting departments at the Caulfield Institute.
“In our garage and in another building beyond at home he created a print workshop where he produced something like 300 editions, which for a lot of print makers is more than a lifetime of work,” he said.
“And he was world renowned for his watercolours and decorated with an AM and OBE – people recognised his contribution to world arts.”
Mr Jack’s works are held in the Queen’s own collection, in galleries and museums all over the world and in every state and national collection in Australia.