An Abstract-Expressionist painter and influential art instructor, Jack Jefferson was active in the Bay Area of California, where he became exposed to his signature style as a student at the California School of Fine Arts. Of special influence was his teacher, Clyfford Still, and Jefferson's early work had many of the same characterisitics as Still's: "convulsive, organic forms; the stark, 'sort of anti-color,' the 'grays and black and reds', the intensity and 'fervor' and 'willingness to use something really raw and brutal' ". (Albright 49-50). Jefferson's painting also had many dark and shadowy forms, that overlapped and interlocked, suggesting pockets of deeper space.

Later his work evolved through greater simplifications with cent...