San Romano - PVA and acrylic on canvas - 102.7 x 102.9cm - c.1969 - courtesy of Royal Scottish Academy collections (Thomas & Christina Hutchison Memorial Fund Purchase 1969)

The development of this style, associated with well-known paintings including How It Is and History Lesson, can offer a valuable insight into Knox’s approach. It is interesting to note how Knox responded to specific artistic examples: the debt which many of these works owe to the Renaissance masters Paolo Uccello and Piero della Francesca cannot be understated. On a trip to the National Gallery in 1968, Knox had been deeply affected by contact with Uccello’s huge, masterful painting The Battle of San Romano, then freshly restored and displayed to indigestible effect in a narrow room. While Knox had always considered the work to be passive and remote, it now struck him as a magnificently active painting, alive with energy, in spite of a carefully-conceived perspectival structure [note 7]. This internal logic is suggested in Knox’s San Romano, with its platform or base-like structure appearing to recede towards a vanishing point, while the work also captures a strong sense of movement: the repeated squares and oblongs help to lead the eye around the painting in a way which suggests the surging action of Uccello’s battle scene.

While Uccello’s influence was vital to Knox’s painting at this time, an encounter with Piero’s work prompted a new departure within this same broadly-defined style; the change might appear radical in visual terms but it is underpinned by a clear logic. When Knox saw work by Uccello and Piero presented side-by-side in the same exhibition, he turned to produce paintings which evoke an overwhelming sense of balance and serenity. Knox conceived of this development as a natural progression from his slightly earlier San Romano works because he recognised a dialogue between the bustle of Uccello’s works and the stillness and stability of Piero’s: the art of the former appeared to ask a question which found its answer in that of the latter [note 8]. As Knox commented, “I think of everything as being opposites: at the same time as I am doing one thing, there is often an opposite idea going on in my head… The very fact that you say opposites infers a relationship. The best dialogues can be between opposing ideas” [note 9].

It is revealing to note, then, that an apparent leap in Knox’s style is the result of a rational thought process which led him to conclude that a visual dissonance can somehow hold true. This example does something to illustrate that the development of Knox’s style did not occur on a whim: as in this instance, it might have been guided in part by serendipitous events, but it also resulted from a keen, conscious awareness, part-aesthetic and part-intellectual. In considering the direction of his art at this time, Knox was neither treading water nor was he intent on treading new ground: it does not appear that he was determined to advance a theme for its own sake, necessarily. Rather, Knox allowed inspiration to come to him, and guided by a strong creative intelligence, he navigated the steps which seemed natural to the development of his work. He found a means of nourishing his art with care and courage.

The importance of Knox’s thought process in commanding the direction of his work is central to understanding perhaps the most drastic shift in his style, which occurred in the space of only a few years between the later 1960s and early 1970s. The change from intellectually-charged semi-abstract works to simple, lucid, intense still life images is a glaring one. It is not a change which can be described in terms of a gradual progression, although to some extent one can plot a certain development in his style through an exciting series of works which burst onto canvas in the intervening period. Furthermore, the watershed which made change seem necessary occurred in the space of a single day. Feelings of inadequacy came to a head in Knox’s mind on a visit to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, when an exhibition of the colourfield painting he had once beloved came to seem limp and empty; this revelation occurred just after he had been excited by unpretentious still life paintings from the Dutch Golden Age in the Rijksmuseum, and just before he had been struck, upon retreating to the Stedelijk’s café, by the absurd likeness of the fare on offer to painted still life imagery [note 10]. The facts of the event might go some way to explaining the rapidity of the change in his style, but Knox’s thought pattern before and after the event is crucial.

Swing Stool and Windmill (Poem for Kyle) - oil on board - 106 x 160cm - c.1969 - courtesy of University of Dundee Museums Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design Collection

A central facet of Knox’s thought process can best explain that startling redirection in the years around 1970. In a series known as Kyle’s Swing, which might predate San Romano and the works associated with it by a year or so, Knox places the paraphernalia of his domestic life as father to a young boy at centre stage: his son, Kyle’s, playthings are exploded, abstracted and stylised so that, when set down on canvas, they lend weight to an esoteric exploration of space and depth by virtue of their enigma, yet they never quite lose their childish associations, and as such cast an ironic glance back at the viewer. In Swing, Stool and Windmill (Poem for Kyle), the boy’s swing has been deconstructed so that its supportive bars become disassociated tube-like shapes, floating in space; his stool becomes a bafflingly bare box-like shape, protruding from the ground up; his delicate paper windmill figures as a hard-edged mechanical turbine or propellor. For all the innate whimsy of Kyle’s playthings, Knox could not help but apply a philosophical significance to these symbols when they appeared in his painting: “there are those three ways of doing it”, it occurred to him, referring to the windmill, the swing and the stool; “either you run round and round in circles, or you swing from one extreme to the other, or you just sit still and do nothing”. When he caught himself grappling with this sort of intellectual weight, his response was: “the hell with it” [note 11].

Three Shapes of Cherries - PVA on canvas - 66 x 107cm - c.1978 - private collection -courtesy of Lyon and Turnbull

Knox’s decision to redirect his practice at this time, to open himself to new leads and ideas - the San Romano works were developed in this period – found its eventual resolution in his still life images. In their gentle humour, inventive treatment, brilliantly apt (and rapt) evocation of sensual delight, even in their disarming intensity, they are paintings which raise a smile: Knox’s still lifes are layered works of art hinging on a deceptive simplicity which provokes immediate delight. Three Shapes of Cherries, for example, is a gloriously immediate feast for the senses which pokes fun at the formality and literality of the still life tradition. When set against the tightly-controlled formal sophistication of the preceding works, Knox’s thick wedges of cream cake, slabs of cheese, hot dogs, hamburgers and the like appear to invite the charge of self-indulgence almost provocatively. But Knox was acutely aware that his new direction struck a totally different chord, and he took ownership of the fact.

A comment from Knox himself, in which he references two of the paintings he most admired in Scotland’s national collection, can reveal something about his thought process with regard to the redirection of his work. He considered Claude Lorraine’s Landscape with Apollo and the Muses, applauding the artist’s “brilliance at marshalling everything he had, and his ability to get it all on canvas in that magnificently ordered way” [note 12]. Claude’s technical accomplishments produced a masterwork which mesmerised Knox, but the source of greater fascination, he said, was Rembrandt’s 1655 Self Portrait. He was profoundly moved by the work, the strength of his response having “nothing to do with colour, or with paint quality, or clever composition. You forget about the colour, about how well it’s done, about everything but the fact that you are just looking at an old man who’s seen it all, looking out at you” [note 13]. In transcending the conventional critical criteria, according to Knox, the essence of Rembrandt’s achievement “has more to do with experience than with art” [note 14].

Chair with Hat (Ile de Re) - oil on canvas - 158.8 x 184.8cm - c.1988 - courtesy of the City Art Centre

Knox recognised and revered the potency of each work, but from around 1970 onwards, the strength of effect which struck him in Rembrandt’s Self Portrait came to figure as a defining element in his own painting. Knox found apt equivalents in paint for those experienced, real-life sensations which excited him: heaps of succulent cherries which we might imagine piled high on the artist’s kitchen table replace the enigmatic hieroglyphs, and eventually give way to works which Cordelia Oliver described as “a kind of painterly wish fulfilment dream” [note 15]. Chair with Hat, a large, loosely-painted oil from the 1980s, is a nostalgic reverie of a summer spent on Île de Ré, and shows Knox taking full, unashamed ownership of the pleasure which results from the act of seeing and sensing. In this immersive painting, he presents his own experience back to us and we share in the sensation of sun-soaked tranquility. That Knox could turn away from his Kyle’s Swing paintings to nurture a work of such direct power, which appeals to the senses with an immediacy not entirely unlike that of Rembrandt’s Self Portrait, is significant, even though these two specific examples (Kyle’s Swing and Chair with Hat) are divided by a gap of many years. Focussing on these extreme examples, however, can help us to properly grasp the totality of Knox’s work, as well as the depth of his thinking. When Knox uttered “the hell with it!”, he was taking heed of a thought process which allowed him to act upon the feeling that his work was becoming burdened by too much intellectual content. This is the mechanism responsible for the development of Knox’s painting: it has played a key role in nourishing a body of work which has the power to excite and satisfy the attentive viewer.

The course of Knox’s work is marked by his shifting preferences in media, as well as by the changing style and manner of his painting: enthusiastic, near-exclusive engagement with a particular type of paint above all others, for example, could nourish Knox’s work for several years. In the later 1960s, the oils which lent a wild freedom and wonderful fluidity to his Studio works were set aside in favour of PVA, then an exciting new medium, which he came to use at each stage of the painting process throughout the 1970s, from priming the ground to binding colours, even for varnishing [note 16]. This pattern repeated itself around 1980, when Knox abandoned PVA in favour of acrylics, and thereafter, acrylics gave way to oils [note 17]. This characteristic engagement does not reflect a flighty self-indulgence on Knox’s part, however: in laying bare his ability to articulate an expression in exactly the right medium, it evidences one of his most impressive skills.

Still Life with Lobster - PVA on canvas - 49 x 74.5cm - 1970s - private collection - courtesy of Lyon and Turnbull

Knox deploys his technical skills to staggering effect in the still lifes of the 1970s, which might be his most compelling works. He finds a means of treating his subject in a way which appears wholly artificial – his pears have an almost metallic sheen to their surface, which highlights the curious flatness of the shape – but which nevertheless does something to convey that very real sensation of edible enticement which Knox aimed to present in all of his foodstuffs. PVA lends itself perfectly to the creation of this absorbing effect. As in Still Life with Lobster, the medium, which binds to a surface easily and dries into a pleasing uniform finish, unites every element of the picture plane, allowing the whole to assume an almost magically lucid quality; quite conversely, the highly durable “sturdiness” of the medium also stresses the physical reality of each object by giving a sense of its solidity. That PVA can hold and present magnificently rich, deep colours does something further to suggest the unreality of the objects – the almost fluorescent wedge of cheese, the candy-red lobster – whilst also seducing viewer into believing in their reality, if only through wishful thinking. Knox’s cheeses, lobsters and peppers appear so unreal, even schematic, that they linger in the memory and fuse themselves to our conception of the real thing: they represent the notion of food more perfectly than the real article ever could.

Knox played a role in reinvigorating the still life tradition by setting eye and mind at odds in this way, and his mastery of PVA is central to the compelling sense of strangeness which he manages to present in simple terms. The suggestion that Knox might have used a novel medium for demonstrative purposes, that he adopted PVA on an indulgent whim, does not hold water: from his earliest engagement with the medium, Knox would have realised not only its ideal facility but also its pitfalls, since its use demands great speed, confidence and self-control (it makes no allowances for error because correction is very difficult to achieve successfully). It is likely, even, that the change from oils to PVA was quite punishing, for all of the perceived frivolity of some of his still life images. As with Knox’s quite sudden adoption of pastels in the 1980s, which allowed him to make use of a thick, uneven line to suggest a certain nervous energy, even a feeling of the absurd, his shifting engagement with media reflects a genuine artistry in approach, which he calculated brilliantly.  

The story of Jack Knox’s art is rich in the element of surprise: in the way we find one style standing beside another; in the way that his painting could suddenly be redirected; even in the way he engaged with media. So often, serendipitous events - an exhibition, a trip to Amsterdam, a holiday to a French island – had a great effect on his practice. But if we rely on these events as a means of explaining the changing course of Knox’s art, we ignore his remarkable ability to transform his experience into an expression of artistry through his own powerful creative intelligence. A guiding voice gave him the authority to explore his practice with confidence and care, to jettison certain developments and to open himself to new ones, and to achieve, ultimately, what he regarded as the best and most faithful expression. The result is a body of work which, although hugely wide-ranging in its variety, does not read as fractured, confused or “erratic”: taken in its totality, it embraces such a great deal and is underpinned by such control that it appears wonderfully well-rounded. His painting is not self-indulgent: by listening to that guiding voice, Knox produced a body of work which can speak to us all.

I’m grateful to the following individuals and bodies for their assistance in allowing me to reproduce images of Jack Knox’s works: Sandy Wood of the Royal Scottish Academy for San Romano; Matthew Jarron of University of Dundee Museums for Swing, Stool and Windmill (Poem for Kyle); Carly Shearer of Lyon and Turnbull for Three Kinds of Cherries and Still Life with Lobster; the City Art Centre for Chair with Hat (Île de Ré).

I’m also sincerely grateful for the kindness and generosity of Knox’s family, particularly that of his wife Margaret, which has been invaluable in the preparation of this text.

Douglas Erskine

Note 1: Charles Darwent, “Jack Knox: Obituary”, The Guardian, 30/04/15, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2015/apr/30/jack-knox, accessed 30/04/2023

Note 2: Paul Harris and Julian Halsby, The Dictionary of Scottish Painters: 1600 to the Present (Edinburgh, 2001), p.118

Note 3: William Hardie, Scottish Painting: 1837 to the Present (London, 1990), p.200

Note 4: References to “self-indulgence” can be found in many period discussions of Knox’s work: the term features noticeably in many newspaper cuttings collected by the artist’s family. Cordelia Oliver makes reference to self-indulgence in her excellent monograph, an invaluable resource which I have drawn on heavily. See Oliver, Jack Knox: Paintings and Drawings, 1960-83 (Glasgow, 1983), p.9

Note 5: Oliver, Jack Knox, p.9

Note 6: Ibid.

Note 7: Ibid, p.24

Note 8: Ibid, p.28

Note 9: Ibid.

Note 10: Ibid, pp.38-39

Note 11: Ibid, p.22

Note 12: Ibid, p.57

Note 13: Ibid.

Note 14: Ibid.

Note 15: Ibid, p.56

Note 16: Ibid, p.18

Note 17: Ibid, p.53