A look back at the life and work of the renowned maritime artist Jack Rigg…
BY BRIAN W LAVERY
Yorkshire-born maritime artist Jack Rigg’s work is seen on the mantelpieces of fishermen and on the walls of the homes of the wealthy.
For years images created by the self-taught artist and former millhand featured on charity Christmas cards produced by the Fishermen’s Mission.
Despite his fame his art is widely accessible, and although his paintings can sell for thousands of pounds, there are also prints of his work available at a fraction of the cost.
His course from millworker to maritime artist was a long and unconventional one. Born into poverty far from the sea in Farsley, West Yorkshire in 1927, he had just nine years of elementary education.
His father Samuel was a basket-maker and his mother a housewife, and it was a struggle in those Depression years to support Jack and his two siblings – younger brother Colin, five years his junior, and elder sister Phyllis, five years his senior.
Another wage was vital to help his family keep its collective head above water. Like many of his class and generation in the town, young Jack left school aged 14 on a Friday and joined the local mill the following Monday.
Although he hated the mill, he loved the independence – and the wages – it gave him. Jack had always been keen to sketch and paint, but as a young lad he had had no materials. He could not afford even pencils and paper.
The war years were economically better for the family. A massive rise in demand for baskets – which the War Department needed for the storage of parachutes – was good news for his father.
Young Jack’s first taste of maritime life came via the local Sea Cadets group, which he joined at 14. By 17 he had volunteered for the Royal Navy.
He loved the sea and his naval service, and served in the final year of the Second World War. But when offered the chance to sign on for 10 years or be demobbed, Jack chose to come home to Farsley and back to Sunny Bank Mills.
His hobbies of art and cycling were to become his mental and physical escapes in the years to come.
He met the love of his life Shirley at the Farsley and District Cycling Club. They were married in 1953, and their two sons Michael and Ian were born in 1955 and 1958.
During this time, Jack was selling his watercolours locally, and the family’s regular trips to the coast inspired his early marine art.
The family lived in a terraced house in Stanningley, and in a small bedroom, facing north – the preferred light source for artists – Jack set up his studio. He progressed from pen and pencil sketches to watercolours, and when he could afford it he’d paint in oils. Slowly, his reputation grew.
In 1958, Jack became a founder member of the Farsley and District Art Club, to which he would belong for 40 years, being made an honorary life member.
In the late 1960s, Jack and his wife became regular weekend visitors to Robin Hood’s Bay near Whitby on the Yorkshire coast.
His son Ian said: “I would say from the 1970s onwards, most of Dad’s paintings were oils on canvas. Whitby and other coastal towns became havens and inspirations for him.
“There were so many fishing trawlers, and Yorkshire cobles with the backdrops of Whitby, Scarborough and Bridlington. I think these are some of his most memorable and collected works.”
He was still painting part- time, and working in the mill. But meanwhile, his wife Shirley had retrained as a teacher. With her support, in 1978, aged 50, Jack took the plunge and became a full-time artist.
Ian added: “Dad would often say of Mum: ‘I could not have done it without her.’”
By the 1980s, Jack’s artistic career was taking off. The Fishermen’s Mission had commissioned his art for its Christmas cards. He was painting scenes of the Hull docks and landscapes of tugs at work.
He and Shirley often visited Hull, as by now their son Ian had co-founded Richmond Rigg Photography – a successful commercial company there.
In 1991, Jack was commissioned by the Sail Training Association to paint its training ship, Sir Winston Churchill, to mark the 25th anniversary of the organisation. The association’s patron, Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York, signed 25 prints of the work – one for each year of its existence.
Jack and Shirley’s lives were blissful. His career was booming and his reputation continued to grow. Then, in 1999, the artist was to suffer a blow from which he never recovered. Shirley died of cancer aged just 64.
He stopped painting for more than a year during her final illness and after her passing. Ian said: “He seemed lost.”
But he did eventually start painting again, and became prolific across the years, coupling popularity with high critical acclaim.
Although prolific, he worked slowly. A painting took at least three months, often much more. Critics’ praise for his work centred on how he captured the light of sea and sky as the main features of his landscapes, with the trawlers, tugs, sailing ships, barges and other vessels playing supporting roles.
Jack lived alone for a further 24 years. For 21 of those years he continued painting, and reinvented himself using many of his old sketches and memories as the basis for paintings during that final era.
He only resigned from the Fylingdales Group of Artists in 2020. For 51 years, he had never missed an annual exhibition of the group.
When he was aged 90, the Viola Trust, a Hull-based group set up to bring the city’s last working steam trawler back to her native port, commissioned two paintings of the vessel, which lies rusting in South Georgia.
His son Ian said: “Dad finally retired when he was 92 years old.
“He kept his studio all in place with his paintings still hanging on the walls, his brushes ready, and his oil paints in the right order by his paint pallet. There was even a blank canvas on his easel.”
Jack Rigg died peacefully at home on 5 August, 2023, aged 95.
A celebration of his life was held at the mill where he had worked since his early teens. Fittingly, Sunny Bank Mills is now an art gallery, complete with restaurants and performance areas.
All photos and images provided by the Rigg family. The author would like to thank Ian Rigg for his assistance.
This story was taken from the December 2023 issue of Fishing News. For more in-depth reports on the UK and Irish commercial fishing sector, subscribe to Fishing News here or buy the latest single issue for just £3.50 here.
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