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William F. Jackson

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Artist's Biography

William F. Jackson came to California as a thirteen year old in 1863, crossing the plains in a covered wagon. His family settled in Sacramento, but young Will’s talent for art led to his enrollment in the California School of Design in San Francisco, where he won a silver medal for draftsmanship in 1875. Upon graduation, he launched into a career as an easel painter in Sacramento, painting both portraits and landscapes. In the 1880s and after, he went on sketching tours in the Sierra Nevada near Soda Springs and Donner Lake with his friend William Keith. In 1885, he was considered to be the best art authority in Sacramento, and Margaret Crocker asked him to be the first curator of her new museum, the E.B. Crocker Art Gallery. Jackson offered to take the position for one year, because his ambitions were to establish himself as an important exhibiting artist, not a museum employee. At the end of the year, he tried to resign, but was talked into staying on one more year. Forty-nine years later, he was still on the job. He became director of the museum-based art school, the Sacramento School of Design, while continuing on as a landscape painter of solid reputation. In the early twentieth century, Jackson brightened his palette and became renowned for his transcriptions of California springtime scenery, replete with vivid orange poppies. In 1911, the San Francisco Call noted that “Jackson has claimed the state flower to be his very own and has proceeded to make good that claim by his absolute mastery of the subject.” (January 22, 1911).