Jack Shear, American (1953 - )

Jack Shear has been a resident of Columbia County for the last 20 years.  He has worked as a photographer for over 25 years and has been included in a number of one-person and group exhibitions during this time.  He has worked primarily in a medium format and concentrated on black and white portraiture.  In 1985 Los Angeles publisher Twelvetrees Press published a monographic collection of Jack’s portraits.  He had his first one-person museum show in 1996 at Williams College Art Museum in Williamstown, Massachusetts, entitled “Short Season”.  Jack’s work has appeared in a number of publications, as diverse as “Rolling Stone”, “ArtForum”, and “New York Magazine”.  Jack’s work is included in private collections and museums such as The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City.

Jack curated and exhibition at the Shaker Museum and Library of Shaker photographs from the collection.  He also co-curated an exhibition entitled “Drawn from Artists’ Collection” with Ann Philbin, Director of the Hammer Museum, at the Drawing Center in New York City and which traveled to the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. 

EXHIBITIONS: One-Man Shows

1982     "Portraits", Oranges/Sardines Gallery, Los Angeles, California

1983     "New Work", Oranges/Sardines Gallery, Los Angeles, California

1985     "Four Marines and Other Portraits", Roy Boyd Gallery, Los             Angeles, California

1986     "Jack Shear Portraits", Photo Impact Gallery,Los Angeles, California

1986     "High School L.A.", The Spencertown Academy, Spencertown,        New York

1987     "Nudes", Richard Green Gallery, Los Angeles, California

1992     "New Light: A Contemporary View of Shaker Architecture", The Shaker Museum and Libary, Old Chatham, New York

1996  "Short Season: Portrait of a Minor League Baseball Team"    Photographs by Jack Shear

            Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, Massachusetts

EXHIBITIONS: Group Shows

1981     National Endowment for the Arts Group Show,

            Cameravision Gallery, Los Angeles, California

1981     LAVA Gallery Artists, Oranges/Sardines Gallery,

            Los Angeles, California

1982     LAVA Gallery Artists, Oranges/Sardines Gallery,

            Los Angeles, California

1983     Los Angeles Ballet Dance Project, Bernard Jacobson Gallery,

            Los Angeles, California

1983     LAVA Gallery Artists, Oranges/Sardines Gallery,

            Los Angeles, California

1983     "The Documentary Portrait", Chapman College,

            Orange, California

1983     "Erotic Vernacular", Cityscape Foto Gallery,

            Pasadena, California

1984     "16 Photographers", Photo Impact Gallery,

            Los Angeles, California

1984     "24 Hours in the Life of L.A.", LAPA Gallery,

            Venice, California

1986     "Manner sehen Manner", Galerie Hanns Christian Hoschek,

            Graz, Austria

1987     "Manner sehen Manner", Fotoforum Bremen E.V.

1987     "Manner sehen Manner", Fotogalerie Wien, Vienna, Austria

1988     "Artist's Images: Images of Artists by Artists",

            Gallery at the Plaza, Los Angeles, California, catalogue

1988     "The Nude: Male/Female", G. Ray Hawkins Gallery,

            Los Angeles, California

1990     "The L.A. Nude II", Photo Impact Gallery,

            Los Angeles, California

1992     "L A Nude III", Photo Impact Gallery, Los Angeles, California

1993     "The Artist as Subject: Paul Cadmus.

            Midtown Payson Galleries, New York, New York

1993  "Art from Nature", Five Points Gallery, East Chatham, New York

1994  "The L A Nude IV", Photo Impact Gallery,

            Los Angeles, California

1996  "Summer Salon III"                                                                                                           Bonnie Benrubi Gallery, New York City, New York

1996     "The L A Nude V", Photo Impact Gallery,Los Angeles, California

1999     “Spencertown”, Spencertown Academy, Spencertown, New York

2001     “The Real and Ideal”, The Albany Institute of History and Art, Albany, New York

2004     “Manhattan Transfer”, Weber Fine Art Gallery, Chatham, New York

EXHIBITIONS: Curated Shows

1990     "Always Over Labor Day: 150 Years of the Chatham Fair",

            Spencertown Academy, Spencertown, New York

1991     "A Day in the Life . . .", Spencertown Academy,

            Spencertown, New York

1991     "Shaker Images: Photographs from the Shaker Museum

            and Library", Shaker Museum and Library, Old Chatham,

            New York, pamphlet with illustrations

1991     "Men: 1850-1991   From Daguerreotype to SX-70",

            Photo Impact Gallery, Los Angeles, California

1993     "Italy: Albumen Prints from the 19th Century",

            Photo Impact Gallery, Los Angeles, California

1993     "Acquisitions: Images from the Collection of Jack Shear",

            Photo Impact Gallery, Los Angeles, California

1996  "Private Collection: Two X 13" Photo Impact Gallery, Los Angeles, California             

1996 "Art Takes Part" Columbia Land Conservancy Benefit Exhibition Park Row Gallery, Chatham, New York

1999     “Drawn from Artists’ Collections”, The Drawing Center, New York City and The Armand Hammer Museum, UCLA, Los Angeles, California

PUBLICATIONS:

LOS ANGELES READER, June 4, 1982, "Portraits of Artists as Young Men, Ten Los Angeles Painters and Poets", by Mitch Tuchman, illustrated

LOS ANGELES HERALD EXAMINER, June 13, 1982, "Portraits that Reveal the Photographer", by Christopher Knight, illustrated

LOS ANGELES TIMES, June 4, 1984, "Galleries", by Robert Pincus

ARTWEEK, August 13, 1984, "Male Portraits", by Tom Knechtel,

illustrated

"24 Hours in the Life of L.A.", Alfred Van Der Marck Editions, 1984

pp. 38-75

PHOTO JAPAN, September, 1985, "Twelvetrees and Nine Samuries",

illustrated

LOS ANGELES TIMES, November 1, 1985, "Galleries", Collin Gardner

JOURNAL, Summer, 1986, Los Angeles Institute for the

Contemporary Arts

LOS ANGELES TIMES, March 4, 1988, "Artists by Artists at Gallery at the Plaza", Cathy Curtis, Art Review, p. 18

THE NEW YORK TIMES, March 5, 1993, Art in Review, "The Artist as Subject: Paul Cadmus", Holland Cotter, p. C25

THE PAPER, June 1994, "Fathers and Sons", essay by Jack Shear,

p. 16-17

THE PAPER, August 1994, "The Pittsfield Mets", essay by Jack Shear, p. 17-19

AMERICAN PHOTOGRAPHER, November/December 1999, “The Photos of the Century”, p. 81

BOOKS:

"Four Marines and Other Portraits", Twelvetrees Press, 1985

"Manner sehen Manner", Peter Weiermair, Verlag Photographie, 1986

"American Photography Three", Harry Abrams, Incorporated, 1987

"The Hidden Image", Peter Weiermair, MIT Press, 1988

"Ellsworth Kelly: Spencertown", Photo Essay, D'Offay/Marks, 1994

"Short Season: Portrait of a Minor League Baseball Team" Williams College Museum of Art, 1996

“Drawn from Artists’ Collections”, The Drawing Center, New York, 1999