If he does not emerge from this study completely accounted for from birth 

 to death, it has not been because of lack of effort. Biographical data for his early 

 and late life — about fifty years in all — are almost entirely missing despite 

 years of diligent search. As a man he remains a shadowy figure. I have traced 

 Jackson's life as far as the available evidence will permit, quoting from the writings 

 of the artist and his contemporaries at some length to convey an essential flavor, 

 but I have refrained from filling in gaps by straining at conjecture. 



While details of his life are vague, sufficient information is at hand to recon- 

 struct his personality clearly enough. After all, Jackson wrote a book and was 

 quoted at length in another. A contemporary fellow-practitioner wrote about him 

 with considerable feeling. These and other sources give a good indication of the 

 artist's character. 



The man we have to deal with had something excessive about him; he was 

 headstrong, tactless, impractical, enormously energetic, a prodigious worker, a 

 conceiver of grandiose projects, and a relentless hunter of patrons. He was at home 

 with his social superiors and had some pretentions to literary culture, he had a 

 coarse gift for the vivid phrase in writing, and his tastes in art ran to the classic 

 and heroic. 



This study includes an illustrated catalog of Jackson's chiaroscuros and color 

 prints. Previous catalogs, notably those of Nagler, Le Blanc, and Heller, have listed 

 no more than twenty-five works. The present catalog more than triples this 

 number. 



To acknowledge fully the assistance given by museum curators, librarians, 

 archivists, and scholars on both sides of the Atlantic would necessitate a very long 

 list of names. However, I wish especially to thank Mr. Peter A. Wick of the Mu- 

 seum of Fine Arts, Boston, who has been generous enough to allow me to read his 

 well-documented paper on Jackson's Ricci prints; Mr. A. Hyatt Mayor of the 

 Metropolitan Museum of Art; Mr. Carl Zigrosser of the Philadelphia Museum of 

 Art; Miss Anna C. Hoyt and Mrs. Anne B. Freedberg of the Museum of Fine Arts, 

 Boston; Dr. Jakob Rosenberg and Miss Ruth S. Magurn of the Fogg Art Museum; 

 Mr. Karl Kup of the New York Public Library; Miss Elizabeth Mongan of the 

 Rosenwald Collection, National Gallery of Art; Miss Una E. Johnson of the Brook- 

 lyn Museum; Mr. Gustave von Groschwitz of the Cincinnati Art Museum; and 

 Dr. Philip W. Bishop of the U.S. National Museum, Smithsonian Institution. 



