American Photorealist artist, Don Jacot (1949 - ), states "I identify myself with Photorealism, an art movement some thirty years into its development, but with historical precedents in the origins of optics and photography. Though I have done purely realist paintings, I prefer the clarity and dependability of photo information, especially for landscapes."

Biography
Don Jacot (1949 - )

The artist, Don Jacot expresses "I identify myself with Photorealism, an art movement some thirty years into its development, but with historical precedents in the origins of optics and photography. Though I have done purely realist paintings, I prefer the clarity and dependability of photo information, especially for landscapes. Working from my own photos but not a slave to them, I feel free to alter perspective, color, the shapes and positions of objects, buildings, etc, in a painting, or to combine elements from sets of photos. I often compose images, which no camera could take. The possibilities are endless, and new artistic developments will probably parallel progress in photography, optics, and computers."

Jacot began drawing in Detroit, Michigan, in 1981 for recreation, using charcoal on paper to interpret photographs of works by famous masters, such as Charles Sheeler and Walker Evans. He took basic drawing classes at Wayne State University and is essentially self-taught. In 1983 he began to seriously pursue art as a full-time career while performing part-time work as a physician's assistant.

Jacot works in acrylics, oils, gouache, watercolor, and charcoal, but concentrates on oil painting. He works with regular artists' brushes and rarely uses an airbrush for touches in a few paintings. Influenced by Social Realism, his urban landscape includes commonplace subjects and aging structures and portrays their "pathos and dignity." Recently he has taken a different approach to the urban environment or the culture in general, and has focused in on the shop window as a motif for a series of paintings. "There I found unusual and complex arrays of consumer items, toys, etc, old and new, mundane or exotic, but always interesting and beautiful to me. I have edited things out of store window settings and then inserted the objects I wanted to see. Sometimes I have fabricated whole images of window displays. My next step is narrowing the frame of reference furtherdown to close-up views of groups of objects, appliances, etc, still within a store window context. By complement and by contrast I combine things from different eras, objects with similar functions or with nostalgic, humorous, or symbolic value, and thereby reflect the culture around me. Beyond that I want to share my fascination with the forms of the things themselves, their colors and surfaces, and their appearances under different lighting, angles, or lens lengths" Jacot explains.

Curriculum Vitae
Don Jacot

1949 Born Chicago, IL
1971 B.A., University of Illinois Champaign, IL
1977 B.S., Mercy College of Detroit Detroit, MI

Selected Exhibitions
2003 Iperrealisti, Chiostro Del Bramante, Rome, Italy
2002 Urban Landscapes, Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York, NY
2001 Near and Far, Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York, NY
1999 Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York, NY
1999 See the USA, National Building Museum, Washington, D.C.
1998 Photorealism, Jaffe Baker Gallery, Boca Raton, FL
1997 The New Photorealists, Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York, NY
1996 New Work, Xochipilli Gallery, Birmingham, MI
1996 Attention to Detail (Realism in All Forms), Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York, NY
1995-96 The Chair: Deconstructed/Reconstructed, The Sybaris Gallery Royal Oak, MI
1995 The Chair: Deconstructed/Reconstructed, Louis K. Meisel Gallery New York, NY
1995 The Chair: Deconstructed/Reconstructed, Xochipilli Gallery Birmingham, MI
1994 An American Vision: Photorealism Paintings, Margulies Taplin Gallery, Boca Raton, FL
1993 Really, Real, Realism Show, Jack Wright Gallery, Palm Beach, FL
1992 Photorealism for Nashville Collections, Cheekwood Fine Arts Center Nashville, TN
1992 The Mailbox Show, The Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Inst. Detroit, MI
1991 The Mailbox Show, Louis K. Meisel Gallery, New York, NY
1990 Don Jacot-El Structures, Xochipilli Gallery Birmingham, MI
1988 Detroit Landscapes, Xochipilli Gallery Birmingham, MI
1985 Urban Realism, Xochipilli Gallery Birmingham, MI