Label
(from 2014.Old Walks and New)
Billy Morrow Jackson, American, 1926-2006
Matoon, 1978, watercolor
Born in Kansas City, MO, Billy Morrow Jackson taught for many years at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. As a Midwesterner, he found beauty in the Plains. This work depicts a rusty and dilapidated barn outside Mattoon, IL. It communicates the vastness of the prairie by the use of one-point perspective in the tire ruts and by the contrast in size of objects in the foreground, middle ground and background. The cloudless blue sky reflects brightly off the rain in the ruts and off the metal of the barn, giving visual interest to this otherwise non-dramatic scene.