Background
Jacob was born in Glendale, Ohio.
Jacob was born in Glendale, Ohio.
Raised in eastern Kansas, he attended San Bernardino Valley College in California.
He is known for his paintings illustrating the culture of the Cherokee tribe and the landscape of the southeastern United States. From 1965 to 1967 Jacob lived in San Francisco, where he made posters for artists such as Allen Ginsberg and the Grateful Dead. He returned to Kansas in 1971, and in 1984 moved to Tahlequah, Oklahoma, a center for the culture of the Cherokee Nation.
Jacob has created oil and acrylic paintings portraying the old and modern Cherokee dances, and the villages, animals, landscapes and perhaps best known for his illustrations of the old Cherokee animal stories especially those about Ji-sdu the rabbit and Yona the bear.
In 2011, Jacob co-wrote and illustrated the book Secret History of the Cherokees
In 2015, Jacob was in the news when a neighbors insisted that he remove a graffiti-like painting which he had commissioned on the side wall of his studio fifteen years before.