Ashley Jackson - the acclaimed watercolour artist looks back on his career as he turns 80

During a remarkable career spanning almost 60 years, his brooding yet majestic moorland paintings have become synonymous with the Yorkshire landscape.

Everyone from actors to artists, and princes to prime ministers have admired his work, and today Ashley Jackson celebrates another landmark – by turning 80.

“I’m a very lucky man to reach this age and there’s an old Yorkshire saying that ‘they that live longest see most,’” he told The Yorkshire Post.

He had been planning to have an exhibition at the Piece Hall in Halifax. However, that was postponed in the wake of Covid-19 and instead he is having a smaller exhibition in his Holmfirth gallery.

Ashley was actually born in Penang, in Malaysia, in 1940, and it was not until he was nine that he first set foot on Yorkshire soil.

Once here, though, he was quickly smitten by its wild moorlands.

He started out as a signwriter in Barnsley before becoming a professional artist, opening his first gallery in nearby Dodworth in 1963.

“When I was at art school the teachers told me to do oils, but I didn’t want to do that, I always wanted to master watercolours.”

He stuck to his guns despite the fact that at the time watercolour painting was seen as out of kilter with the heady, colour-saturated work of people like Andy Warhol, Peter Blake and a young Bradfordian called David Hockney.

Jackson, though, has always ploughed his own furrow and refused to conform to trends. It has stood him in good stead down the years, so looking back what have been some of the highlights? “Having LS Lowry coming into my gallery in Barnsley in ’68 was a big honour for me.” So, too, was having Prince Charles open his Vision of Turner in Yorkshire exhibition in Huddersfield in 1986.

At the heart of everything is his undimmed passion for the moors. “I went up to Blakey Ridge the other day to do some sketching. I still get as much joy from it as I did when I was a sixteen year old lad. I still enjoy the landscape of Yorkshire – I’ll never tire of it,” he said.

“I’ve been fortunate enough to paint all over the country and abroad, but I just love the uplands of the Yorkshire moors. There’s a spirit about the landscape and that’s what I try and capture in my paintings.”

Despite his success, not every painting has always matched his exacting standards. “If I wasn’t happy with one I used to tear them up. But old man Lowry said to me ‘don’t tear them up.’ People don’t know this but he used to judge my paintings. I’d take them over to his house [in Mottram] and he’d look at them and suggest which ones I should submit to exhibitions in London. And every one that Lowry chose got accepted. He said to me ‘don’t be the judge of your own paintings.’

“Since those days I’ve painted on the other side rather than tearing them up. So anyone who buys one of my originals might have a double album if you like.”

The two constants in his life have been his affection for his adopted county and his family. “It has been a privilege to capture the landscapes of Yorkshire, and my family, which has supported me with unconditional love, has enabled me to paint.”

This compulsion to paint has been there from the start and has never left him. “It’s just in me... I’ll die with a paintbrush in my hand.”

To find out more visit www.ashley-jackson.co.uk

Portrait of the artist

Ashley Norman Jackson was born on October 22, 1940, in Penang.

His family moved to Yorkshire in 1950 when Ashley was nine years old.

He opened his first gallery in Dodworth, near Barnsley, in 1963.

His evocative watercolour paintings of his beloved Pennine moors have been seen in exhibitions all over the world.

A Brush with Ashley, his popular television series, ran for nearly 10 years.

In 2006, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Yorkshire Awards.

He helped launch an art project called Framing The Landscape, aimed at creating a permanent, ever-changing outside art exhibition.

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James Mitchinson