Background
Beardy was the son of John Beardy and Dinah Monias and fifth of 13 children.
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Jackson Beardy
Edit ProfileEducation
He attended residential school at Portage la Prairie at the age of sixteen. Beardy then went on to graduate from Commercial Art at Technical Voc High School and then finished his education at the School of Fine Arts at the University of Manitoba.
Career
He did not speak English when he started school. Beardy quickly distanced himself from the forced nature of education that all Indians in that area underwent at the residential schools, and it was from these lessons that he began to assert his “Indianness”. Interestingly, Beardy did benefit from his education at the boarding school, as it was there that he learned to draw and paint.
In 1972 Jackson Beardy, Alex Janvier and Daphne Odjig held a joint exhibition at the Winnipeg Art Gallery called "Treaty Numbers 23, 287, 1171".
The name was a reference to the treaty numbers that the Canadian government gave to the indigenous groups which they had concluded treaties with. From this exhibition grew a group of indigenous (Native) Canadian artists who named themselves the "Professional Native Indian Artists Association” in 1973, better known as the Indian Group of Seven.
Included alongside Jackson Beardy was Alex Janvier, Norval Morrisseau, Daphne Odjig, Carl Ray, Eddy Cobiness and Joseph Sanchez. They combined forces to promote their work into the world of western art
They were committed to indigenous control of indigenous art and changing acceptance from emphasizing "Indigenous" to emphasizing "Artistic” value.
His media of choice was oil, acrylic, tempura and prints. From 1982 through 1983, Jackson Beardy was senior arts advisor to the Federal Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development now Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. He helped to make a methodological shift from the anthropological to the aesthetic evaluation of “Native art”.
He worked tirelessly to lay the institutional and activist political foundations, which would help future generation of First Nations artists.
Although Beardy"s early work often narrates specific legends, his mature art expresses fundamental cosmological and spiritual concepts such as balance in nature, regeneration and growth, and the interdependence of all things. His distinctive graphic style is characterized by precisely defined flat areas of warm colour and curving ribbons of paint.
Jackson Beardy died on December 7, 1984 in Winnipeg, Manitoba from complications after a heart attack.
Membership
He belonged to the Woodland School of Art and was a prominent member of the Indian Group of Seven.
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Born
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Died
December 7, 1984 (aged 40) -
Nationality
Canada