Jack Humphrey

Humphrey, Jack Weldon

Jack Weldon Humphrey, painter (b at Saint John 12 Jan 1901; d there 23 Mar 1967). Humphrey was the most significant eastern Canadian painter of his generation. He studied under Charles Hawthorne at NY's National Academy of Design from 1924 to 1929 and with Hans Hofman in Munich in 1930. He later visited Europe, Mexico and New York, but his deepest sentimental attraction was to his birthplace, in spite of its isolation from artistic developments. Humphrey's paintings of the harbour, streets and workers of Saint John established his reputation as a regional artist and his work extended to numerous portraits of friends and the city's children. Making no concessions to fashion, Humphrey's tough, honest approach made him a respected member of Montréal's CONTEMPORARY ART SOCIETY and the Canadian Group of Painters. Returning from France in 1954, he developed abstract and nonobjective tendencies in gouache and oil landscapes, while his beautiful watercolours focused on the intimate details of nature.