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Photo: Jack Ward for Vogue, 1966

Posted on August 3, 2012

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After two bouts with prostate cancer in the late 1990’s Jack Ward decided to go back to school. He enrolled in a Doctorate program on the History of Photography at Princeton University. During the same period he served a two-year internship at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

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Upon completing his PHD at Princeton; his first assignment was to work for the Tate Gallery in London gathering prints for an exhibit on Early French and British Photographers, which then led him to curate an exhibit for the Chinese government on Chinese photographers for the Beijing Olympics. It was at the opening of the Beijing exhibit where he met President George W. Bush, and was asked by the former president and wife Laura: if he would organize the presidential archive for his upcoming library. Jack is currently working on this most important historical record. He also works with the Metropolitan in NYC on research projects, and has lectured at various universities.

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Originally an artist of the brush, Jack studied painting and design at Cooper Union in New York City, and color theory under the tutelage of Josef Albers at Yale University, where he received an MFA degree in Color Theory in 1958. It was during a stint in the Air Force – flying the observer (weapons control officer) position in F-100F, F-101F, F-102F, and B-57 aircraft off of Cape Cod and in North Africa, that Jack’s interest in photography became a passion.

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Photo by Jack Ward: Green Dress, Vogue 1966

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The talented lensman decided to pursue photography as a career and was fortunate to apprentice with master photographer/art director Art Kane in New York. He also studied photography for three years with Lisette Model at the New School for Social Research, and for four years with the legend, Alexey Brodovitch at the Richard Avedon Studio.

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Jack opened his own studio in Carnegie Hall in January of 1965 and immediately went to work on a variety of editorial and advertising campaigns for London based Collette, Dickinson, & Pearce, and for Yardley Perfumes based in San Francisco. When he returned to New York, Young & Rubicam called with an advertising campaign for Arrow Shirts, while Esquire Magazine had him photograph the major battle sites of the Second World War in the South Pacific. He also worked on the staff of the London Sunday Times magazine for five years.

Photos: Copyright 2012 by Jack Ward

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To Be Continued………