Jack Shadbolt

Jack Leonard Shadbolt (1909-1998) was an influential Canadian painter born in Shoeburyness, England, who immigrated to Canada in 1911. Raised in Victoria, British Columbia, he studied under Frederick Varley at the Vancouver School of Art (VSA) and later trained in New York, London, and Paris. During World War II, he served as an army artist, documenting scenes at a prisoner-of-war camp in Petawawa, Ontario, and later worked with the Canadian War Art Program in London.

As a longtime faculty member at VSA until his retirement in 1966, Shadbolt significantly influenced Canadian art education. Together with his wife Doris Meisel, whom he married in 1945, he established the Vancouver Institute for the Visual Arts (now The Jack and Doris Shadbolt Foundation for the Visual Arts) in 1987. His contributions to Canadian art were recognized through numerous honors, including representing Canada at the 1956 Venice Biennale and receiving both the Order of Canada (1972) and the Order of British Columbia (1990). His legacy is commemorated through the Shadbolt Centre for the Arts in Deer Lake Park and a commemorative stamp issued by Canada Post in 2001.