Item R-D1454 - Illustration by Richard Jack of the second battle of Ypres, Great War

Jack was born February 15, 1866 in Sunderland, County Durham in the United Kingdom. He studied at York School of Art before winning a national scholarship to the Royal College of Art in 1886 from which he won a gold medal and in 1888 a travelling scholarship to the Académie Julian and Académie Colarossi. He returned to London in the early 1890s where worked for The Idler and for Cassell's Magazine as a black-and-white artist. He was awarded a silver medal at the 1900 Paris International Exhibition and at the Carnegie International in Pittsburgh in 1914. Jack was elected an Associate of the Royal Academy of Arts in February 1914.

In 1916, Jack accepted a commission in the Canadian Army to paint for the Canadian War Records Office, becoming Canada's first official war artist. Lord Beaverbrook commissioned two large paintings: The Second Battle of Ypres, 22 April to 25 May 1915, and The Taking of Vimy Ridge, Easter Monday 1917. Thereafter he was commissioned to paint a portrait of King George V by the Metropolitan Borough of Fulham; he subsequently painted portraits of Queen Mary, King Alphonso of Spain, and various interiors at Buckingham Palace. In the 1920s Jack became fond of Canada, making several visits there with his family and in 1931, after his daughter (Doris Jack, 1898-1971) met and married the Ottawan businessperson Victor Whitehead, Jack and his wife (Rebecca Maria Stead Jack, 1864-1948) moved to Montreal where he continued to paint landscapes and portraits.

Richard Jack died on June 29, 1952 in Montreal.