Jock Macdonald was a member of Painters Eleven

Painters Eleven

Painters Eleven was a collective of abstract artists active in Canada from 1954 to 1960.-History:...

 (Painters 11, or P11), whose goal was to promote abstract art

Abstract art

Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...

 in Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

.

Early life

He was born in May 1897 in Thurso

Thurso

-Facilities:Offices of the Highland Council are located in the town, as is the main campus of North Highland College, formerly Thurso College. This is one of several partner colleges which constitute the UHI Millennium Institute, and offers several certificate, diploma and degree courses from...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

. Before coming to Canada, Macdonald attended the Edinburgh College of Art

Edinburgh College of Art

Edinburgh College of Art is an art school in Edinburgh, Scotland, providing tertiary education in art and design disciplines for over two thousand students....

 and worked as a designer for a Scottish textile company.

Artist and teaching career

He moved to Canada in 1926 to become a professor at the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts. Macdonald became well-known and respected as a teacher at art colleges in Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

, Vancouver

Vancouver

Vancouver is a coastal seaport city on the mainland of British Columbia, Canada. It is the hub of Greater Vancouver, which, with over 2.3 million residents, is the third most populous metropolitan area in the country,...

 and Toronto

Toronto

Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...

.

He was initially inspired by the Group of Seven's work but began painting abstracts in 1924. Macdonald's training as a designer and his interest in children's paintings encouraged his experimentation with abstract art.

He loved to play with colour. Abstraction allowed Macdonald the freedom to create pictures that had no apparent subject matter. He could blend and layer colours on his canvas without worrying whether some people would have difficulty understanding his subject. He continued to paint abstract for quite sometime, later adding Surrealist elements into his work.

He was an influential professor at several art colleges in Canada and helped spur the modern art movement in the country. He died in Toronto, in December 1960.