Jack Dempsey
edit(1927-2003)
Artist. Intellectual. Poet. Founded the visual art program at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Dempsey was an accomplished painter, writer, and art teacher. He based many of his innovations in art education on the role and value of Art in studying the human mind. These ideas were the basis of his treatise on human learning entitled Anomaly Resolution. Other significant visual art teaching credit to Dempsey are "Providing and Withholding" and "Six Perspective Factors"
As a young man he studied painting in Italy and was well versed in the history of painting technique, materials and technology. He shared the Old Masters' oil painting methods (under-painting and glazing) with hundreds of fascinated art students of all ages.
Dempsey was involved in Huntsville, Alabama's arts community beginning in the 1970's when he visited the Madison County (Alabama) jail to teach drawing to people incarcerated there. Dempsey was active in the Huntsville Arts League Museum Association where he continued to teach painting and drawing classes after retiring as an Associate Professor from the University of Alabama.