Harry Jackson was an American artist. He began as a Marine combat artist, before moving into abstract, realist, and Western American art. Jackson was born Harry Aaron Shapiro Jr. in Chicago on April 18, 1924. His mother changed his name to Harry Andrew Jackson. He attended the Art Institute of Chicago as a teenager and was influenced by the cowboys he met at the Union Stock Yards in Chicago where he developed an interest in the American West. At the age of fourteen Jackson moved to Wyoming working on ranches in Cody and Meeteetse as a ranch hand, he also began sketching Western scenes. In 1942, Jackson enlisted with the Marines during World War II and became a combat artist, until his discharge in 1945. In 1946 he moved to New York and began painting in the abstract expressionist style, influenced by Jackson Pollock and Wassily Kandinsky. In the 1950’s, Jackson’s art was becoming more realist and in the 1970s he moved back to Wyoming and also lived in Camaiore, Italy where he had a foundry and studio. By the 1980’s, he was a well-known and influential artist of the American West genre. Jackson died on April 25, 2011 in Sheridan, Wyoming.