Robert Jacks

Robert Jacks (8 March 1943, Melbourne—14 August 2014, Castlemaine) was an Australian painter, sculptor and printmaker. Born in Melbourne, Australia. He studied sculpture from 1958 to 1960 at the Prahran Technical College, Melbourne, and painting in 1961 and 1962 at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (now RMIT University). In 1966 he had his first solo exhibition at Gallery A, Melbourne from which a work was purchased for the collection of the National Gallery of Victoria. In 1968, he participated in The Field an extremely influential exhibition, held at the new National Gallery of Victoria building in St Kilda Road, which effectively launched color field abstraction in Australia. He taught at Rochedale College, Toronto before moving to New York City in 1969. He returned to Melbourne in 1978 to be artist-in-residence at the University of Melbourne.