Don Wright - "Laughing Jack" 4/15

Painter, printmaker, and draughtsman, Don Wright was born in 1931 in Timmins, Ontario.  He studied printmaking with Fred Hagen at the Ontario College of Art (1959-66) and in 1967 moved with his family to Newfoundland.  From 1967-83, he worked in Memorial University's Extension Services, maintained an active teaching career, and continued to produce his own art.  In 1972 in partnership with Heide Oberheide, he co-founded the St. Michael's Printshop on the Avalon Peninsula - it was the province's first professional printmaking facility for artists and it attracted artists from across the country.  Wright, a hemophiliac, contracted HIV through a blood transfusion, and died of AIDS- related causes in 1988.  In 1990, the Memorial University Art Gallery toured a retrospective of Wright's work nationally.