Jack Courier
Jack Courier (1915– 2007), a.k.a. John, was an Australian Modernist printmaker, painter and teacher. Early life and education Courier was born in 1915 in Elwood, Victoria. As a young man he took various jobs including work as a salesman in country towns. He studied at the school established by George Bell and Arnold Shore at 443 Bourke Street, Melbourne, which became a centre for modernist art in Melbourne. He exhibited with the George Bell Group in 1949 and with the Melbourne Contemporary Artists in 1952. An early review by The Age art critic of the exhibition of the George Bell Group in their annual exhibition at the Victorian Artists' Society's Gallery, Albert Street, East Melbourne, noted that his painting The Red Chair was, and one by Peter Cox, were works "by younger men that impress". Career Like other Australian printmakers, including Fred Williams, Ian Armstrong, Janet Dawson and Robert Grieve, Courier went to study abroad. From 1950 to 1951 he travelled in Europe, then funded by a British Council Bursary returned to England 1954–1956 to study painting, drawing, lithography with Lynton Lamb and Ceri Richards and also etching at the Slade School. On his return to Melbourne, he set up