Jack Massey

Jack Massey is a professor emeritus at RISD. He grew up in Pittsburgh, PA and studied at the Albert C. Barnes Foundation and at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. After serving in World War II, he attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the FIne Arts in Philadelphia. After graduating, he was awarded a Prix de Rome and spent three years at the American Academy in Rome. He later returned there as an artist-in-residence.
He has received numerous awards and honors and has participated in many collaborative projects. 
At RISD, Jack was instrumental in establishing the European Honors Program in Rome where he was Chief Critic for a number of years. He was also a member of the artist/ architect design team that rehabilitated RISD’s once derelict Woods-Gerry Mansion which now houses RISD’s main exhibition space for student work.

Jack’s work is in the collections of the Carnegie Institute, MIT, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Albright-Knox Gallery, the American Academy in Rome, and many other public and private collections. Generally described as abstract or conceptual, his work employs numerous media and has run the the gamut from large sculptures and installations (employing metal, stone and wood) to intimate mixed media works, as in the piece shown here, dealing with the interaction of color and form.