10 Facts About Jock Macdonald

James Williamson Galloway Macdonald, commonly known in his professional life as Jock Macdonald, was a member of Painters Eleven, whose goal was to promote abstract art in Canada.

Jock Macdonald was the first painter to exhibit abstract art in Vancouver, and throughout his life he championed Canadian avant-garde artists at home and abroad.

Jock Macdonald became well-known and respected as a teacher at art colleges in Canada at Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto.

Jock Macdonald settled in Nice where he showed his watercolours to Jean Dubuffet who advised him to "speak in oil as you do in watercolour".

Jock Macdonald's breakthrough came when Harold Town introduced him to a new paint material, Lucite 44.

Jock Macdonald was an influential professor at several art colleges in Canada and helped spur the modern art movement in the country.

Jock Macdonald was made an associate member of the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts.

Jock Macdonald was a member of Painters Eleven as well as a charter member of the Canadian Group of Painters, a life member of the British Columbia Society of Artists, President of the Canadian Society of Painters in Water Colour in 1952, and an executive member of the Ontario Society of Artists that year.

Jock Macdonald had an important retrospective at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the first offered a living artist who was not a member of the Group of Seven.

Jock Macdonald died of a heart attack in Toronto in December 1960.