Jack Welpott Dies at 84

Jack was an old friend with whom I corresponded in an irregular way, basically because our mutual schedules would make it difficult to do otherwise, yet our emotional communication always flowed back and forth over the years in an uninterrupted manner. There was a real bond between us and a lot of mutual respect.

I tried to have his work shown here in ZoneZero, and in trying to do something special, Jack would always ask for more time to send me some of his images. In the end it sadly never happened, for what ever reasons he had.

He started out by sending me some of the images he had taken when he was fifteen, in his memory we show them today as a tribute to our friendship.

Pedro Meyer

1989 © PedroMeyer

Jack Welpott, one of the great photographers and teachers of the post-World War II generation, passed away last November 24, he was 84.

Jack Welpott was born in Kansas City in April 27, 1923. He grew up in southern Indiana and was educated at primary and secondary schools in Missouri, Illinois and Indiana. He served in World War II, and returned to the Hoosier state to attend Indiana University. In 1949, he earned his BS in Economics from the University of Indiana, Bloomington. Unsure of his direction, he enrolled in a photography class and met the legendary photography instructor Henry Holmes Smith. Under his tutelage, Welpott thrived. He became enthralled with black-and-white photography as a fine art form, and never looked back.

He studied painting under Leon Golub and Harry Engle, and design with George Rickey and received his MS in Visual Communication in 1955. Jack completed his MFA in 1959 and began his long teaching career at San Francisco State College as he pursued his career as a professional photographer. In 1973 he was the recipient of the Medal of Arles, France; a little be later that same year he received the grant from the National Endowment for the Arts; and, in 1983, a Polaroid grant in association with the Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego.

Jack's photographs are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum, New York; International Museum of Photography, George Eastman House, Rochester, New York; Art Institute of Chicago; Center of Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson; University of New Mexico, Albuquerque; Norton Simon Art Museum, Pasadena, California; Oakland Museum of Modern Art, California; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris.

November, 2007