Jack Stewart (artist)

In the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art Journal, "Bohemians, 2010," Vol. 49, Nos. 3–4, pages 40–49, the New York regional collections specialist Charles H. Duncan referred to Stewart as Graffiti's Vasari.

Abrams published the thesis in 2009 under the title Graffiti Kings: New York City Mass Transit Art of the 1970s. Sasha Frere-Jones wrote in The New Yorker: "Stewart began documenting graffiti as soon as it started. . . . Graffiti Kings: New York City Mass Transit Art of the 1970s is a reorganization of a dissertation by the late Jack Stewart, a New York artist who photographed the beginnings of New York graffiti and eventually befriended many of the writers. . . . Duncan Bock, editor-in-chief of Melcher Media, the firm that helped bring Graffiti Kings to a popular audience, described Stewart's work: 'Jack understood the intensity, beauty and importance of the tags, why they were on trains, and why it was so hard to do it well. . . . He understood that this formal act was revolutionary and, at that moment, nobody else in the world knew how to do it.'

Stewart's work has been written about, quoted, and reproduced in many publications including: Born in the Streets: Graffiti, Fondation Cartier pour l'art Contemporain, 2009; Graffitins Historia by Malcolm Jacobson, Sweden, 2011; 365 Graffiti, by Jay "J.SON" Edlin & Andrew "Zephyr" Witten, Abrams, 2011; Art in the Streets, Jeffrey Deitch, et al., Skira Rizzoli/MOCA, 2011; Graffiti une Histoire en Images by Bernard Fontaine, Eyrolles, Paris, France, 2011; Classic Hits: New York Pioneering Subway Graffiti Writers by Alan Fleisher & Paul Lovino, Dokument Press, Sweden, 2012.

Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA, 2013, 2009; Fondation Cartier pour l'art Contemporain, Paris, France, 2010; New York Hall of Science, Queens, NY, 2012, 2003; New-York Historical Society, NYC, 2011; Blue Hill Cultural Center, Pearl River, NY, 2011, 2002, 2000, 1998, 1990; Art Basel Miami Beach, FL, 2010; National Academy Museum, NYC, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2001, 1999, 1997, 1996, 1995; Broome Street Gallery, NYC, 2005, 2001, 1992, 1990; UMA Gallery, NYC, January 2004, July 2004; 116 Prince Street, Here Is New York: A Democracy of Photographs (9/11/01), 2001; The Alternative Museum, NYC, 1999, 1995; Art Students League, NYC, 1998; Silvermine Galleries, CT, 1998; Chiostro del Bramante, exhibit and lecture New York Subway Graffiti, Rome, Italy, 1997; Galeria Tonali, Mexico City, Mexico, 1997; Anita Shapolsky Gallery, NYC, 1997; Olympia & York Atrium Gallery, NYC, 1996; Bennett Galleries, Knoxville, TN, 1993; Gwinnett Fine Arts Center, Duluth, GA, 1995; 80 Washington Square East Galleries, NYC, 1985; Sheldon Swope Gallery, Terre Haute, IN, 1978; Il Palazzo Grassi, Venice, Italy, 1976; La Scuola di Teodora, Venice, Italy, 1976; Museum Galleries of The Cooper Union, NYC, 1971, 1969, 1964; Woods-Gerry Gallery, Providence, RI, 1976; The American Federation of Arts National Traveling Show, 1965–1966; Grippi & Waddell Gallery, NYC, 1964; Roland De Aenlle Gallery, NYC, 1963; Grippi Gallery, NYC, 1963; Beardsley Gallery, Winsted, CT, 1953; Charles Egan Gallery, NYC, 1952; and the George Binet Gallery, NYC, 1950, among others.

Stewart wrote his definitive book Graffiti Kings from his Ph.D. thesis Mass Transit Art Subway Graffiti. He also wrote many articles for other books, magazines, newspapers, and exhibition catalogues including Drawings: Looking into the 21st Century, (Drawings by Jack Stewart) NYC, 2001; Urban Mythologies: The Bronx Represented Since the 1960s, The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY, 1999; "M.T.A. – Mass Transit Art," American Graffiti, 1997; and "M.T.A. – Mass Transit Art," Coming from the Subway: New York Graffiti Art, Groninger Museum, Netherlands, 1992.

Among his professional affiliations Stewart was a board member, recording secretary, president, and president emeritus of New York Artists Equity Association, Inc.; board member, president, and president emeritus of The National Society of Mural Painters; board member and president of the Fine Arts Federation of New York; and in 1995 was elected an Academician of the National Academy, NYC, NY. In 2010 his papers were donated to the Smithsonian Archives of American Art.

In 1985 Stewart was commissioned to paint Anodyne, his interpretation of the human brain. In an article about Anodyne in Il Giornale dell'Arte, artist/art critic Lucio Pozzi wrote: "What comes out of this, in my opinion, is one of the most monumentally important works of symbolist-precisionist painting of our time."

For USA Today, January 1984, Vol.112/No.2464, he and Regina Stewart co-authored "Richard Meier's The Atheneum at New Harmony," and they co-authored "Architectural Excitement in New Harmony," The Tribune-Star, Terre Haute, IN, 1979. Stewart also wrote about the colossal carving of Chief Crazy Horse, The Tribune-Star, Terre Haute, IN, 1978; articles on drawing and mosaics for the Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia, World Publ. Co., Chicago, IL, 1969; and was technical editor of Modern Mosaic Techniques, Watson-Guptil, NY, 1967.

Stewart's Ph.D. dissertation Mass Transit Art Subway Graffiti is the second known study of NYC subway graffiti that was investigated almost entirely from primary sources, the first being Craig Castleman's 1979 Columbia University doctoral dissertation, published in 1982 by MIT Press as Getting Up: Subway Graffiti in New York and in Spain by Capitan Swing as Hacerce Ver. In the fall of 1969 and the spring of 1970 graffiti started to appear on New York subway station walls and inside the cars, and that is when Stewart began to photograph and research this urban phenomenon.

The thesis covers the beginning and the most important years of the movement. The most thoroughly and intensely studied period was the winter of 1972 through the spring of 1973 when Stewart unfailingly photographed every weekend in order to compile and identify the constantly changing, distinguishing characteristics as they were happening. Although he felt that subway graffiti had its golden age in 1973, he did continue photographing on a less vigorous schedule until about 1979.

Stewart's mosaic furniture designs were often featured in the books published by Furniture Forum Inc. His work was also featured in the magazine House & Garden and on the cover of the January 1960 issue of House Beautiful. His many commissions for mosaic and ceramic tile murals and stained glass windows included: a 17' x 92' long mosaic on the facade of the Versailles Hotel, Miami Beach, FL; the Hotel Aruba Caribbean, Netherlands, Antilles; eleven mosaics murals for the SS Santa Paula; mosaic murals in Public School 28, NYC, NY, Public Art for Public Schools; a stained glass window installation for Robin International Corporation of NYC; a 5' x 18' long laminated stained glass wall for Avard Furniture Company, NYC; and in 1988 he was commissioned to create a 4' x 18' mural made of clothing labels, sheepskin, and cotton balls for the Cluett Arrow Shirt Group of New York City.

Stewart wrote, "I'm doing what most artists have done historically; I've tried to find my own way in my own time. In my youth I was involved with Action Painting. However, I came to realize that was the way of the generation that preceded me and I turned away from it. Modernism is the art of one's time. While teaching in Greece in the early 1960s I became influenced by the post and lintel architecture of the ancients. Their influence persists in my compositions today. [Stewart directed the English-speaking division of the Athens Advanced School of Fine Arts in Mithymna on the island of Lesbos during the summers of 1963 and 1964.]

Though Stewart had a thorough grounding in all aspects of techniques–sculpture, printmaking, watercolors, egg-tempera, oil, ceramic fresco, and mosaics–he adopted acrylics as a preferred medium in the early 1960s and experimented with them in a way that led to a kind of painting that is technically different from anything else. He would draw and/or paint in reverse with pastel, pencil, charcoal, and/or ink on an architectural vellum. The vellum was then applied to a primed canvas with a clear acrylic. When the acrylic dried the vellum was removed giving the new image a unique depth of field.

Stewart moved to New York City in 1949. His first solo painting exhibit was in 1950 at the George Binet Gallery. During the 1950s he showed with Charles Egan, Joseph Grippi, and Richard Waddell. During that time he also founded the Stewart-Marean Gallery and The Stewart Studio, which was established for the design and execution of his commissioned mosaic furnishings and murals. Many of his furniture pieces were featured in Furniture Forum. He was an accomplished educator, art administrator, and the first to photograph and document the New York City Subway graffiti movement, from its beginning, in his definitive work Graffiti Kings: New York City Mass Transit Art of the 1970s.

Jack Stewart (January 27, 1926 – March 4, 2005) was an American artist. Born in Atlanta, Georgia, he began private art lessons when he was seven. When he was about nine he went to classes at the High Museum of Art. In his early to mid-teens he apprenticed to the sculptor/painter Steffen Thomas. During WWII he served in Patton's Third Army as a combat infantryman, entering combat in the Battle of the Bulge. After the war he earned a BFA degree at Yale University, where he studied with Josef Albers and Willem de Kooning. He studied architecture at Columbia University and later earned MA and Ph.D. degrees at New York University. In 1976 Stewart married painter and art administrator Regina Serniak Stewart. His first wife and their son are deceased.