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Ella F. Jackson

Hallmarks of folk art traditions and iconography appear in this mid-century Modernist woodcut by Provincetown painter and printmaker Ella F. Jackson. In addition to her formal studies at Columbia University and with the artists Hans Hofmann and Gabor Peterdi, we speculate that Jackson may very well have spent some time in Mexico City, perhaps at the Taller de Grafica Popular, owing to the influence of Mexican Modernism frequently found in her subject matter and the bold style of her woodcuts.

Here, the confluence of Mexican Catholic and Indigenous sensibilities appears in the Christian angel in the upper half and the songbird and cornflower in the lower half. Three women, adorned in shawls, surround a haloed child in the center of the piece. Jackson purposefully retains the woodgrain and keeps the shapes somewhat simple, allowing the rich colors and symbolic composition to do the talking.

Jackson exhibited widely in the forties and fifties, including exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, the Philadelphia Print Club and the Bodley Gallery. She was a member of the Brooklyn Society of Artists, the Provincetown Art Association and the Cape Cod Art Association. Two of her woodcuts are in the museum collection of the Provincetown Art Association.