Homer Jackson, celebrated interdisciplinary artist and adjunct professor at Temple, has died at 67

Homer Jackson, 67, of Philadelphia, a celebrated performance, installation, and multimedia artist, adjunct professor at Temple University, jazz devotee, storyteller, curator, writer, and mentor, died Saturday, July 13, of multiple myeloma at his home.

Born in Philadelphia and a graduate of the old Philadelphia College of Art and Temple’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture, Mr. Jackson used objects, images, sounds, text, live performance, video, and audience participation to tell intriguing tales of Black life in America. He produced dozens of eclectic exhibits, wrote plays and passages, and staged diverse performances at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Painted Bride Art Center, Actors Center, Taller Puertorriqueno, and other venues around the region.

“Essentially, there is a vast, uncharted universe of Blackness out there,” he said in an online profile. “I have always sought to be one of its astronauts.”

Many of his shows and exhibits over the last 40 years featured multiple artists, and his acclaimed High Flying in 1993 at the ICA examined the connections between TV advertising, expensive sneakers, professional basketball players, and Black culture. “This whole exhibit is a challenge to what fine arts is,” he told the Daily News.

He commented artistically on African river spirits and ancient cosmology, enslaved legends from Brazil, Black life in prison, and countless other issues. He was part of a 2021 exhibit at the Fairmount Water Works called Pool: A Social History of Segregation, and he created walking tours in 2019 called New Songs of the Open Road that celebrated poet Walt Whitman.

He showed Prison Sentences, an exhibit in 30 cells at the old Eastern State Penitentiary, in the 1980s and commented on the controversy over Christopher Columbus’ role in America in 1992′s Speaking in Our Own Tongues. In 1996, he produced a multimedia jazz opera that explored guilt, innocence, and self image called The Three Willies.

“As Black folks, we have to get past trying to prove our innocence and live for ourselves, do for ourselves, especially in terms of mental health,” he told the Daily News then. “The whole stress of trying to prove yourself innocent is, like, nauseating.”

As a teacher and producer, Mr. Jackson took art of all kinds to students and seniors, and everyone in between. He organized art workshops and production seminars at schools, community centers, and prisons. He was an adjunct professor in the film department at Temple for the last three years and taught online during the COVID-19 pandemic.

His work with at-risk youth was recognized by the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities in 1996, and he earned an artist fellowship from Philadelphia’s Cultural Treasures in 2022 for making “a material difference” in the lives of others. “He is looking for the answers,” Julia Lopez, then the visual arts director at Taller Puertorriqueno, said in 1993. “And in his search for the answers, you have a good time because he’s really funny. You’re able to laugh at really difficult or even horrifying scenarios.”

Mr. Jackson also cofounded the nonprofit Philadelphia Jazz Project in 2011, and he tirelessly promoted jazz music and musicians, and staged performances around the region. He hosted a jazz show on Temple’s WRTI radio station for nearly a decade and was featured often in The Inquirer and Daily News.

“He just thinks very expansively,” Gerry Givnish, cofounder of the Painted Bride, said in 1993. Longtime friend and colleague Patricia Finio said: “I bear witness to his mission of truthfulness and his challenge to mediocrity.”

Homer Jackson Jr. was born March 4, 1957. He grew up in North Philadelphia and said later that he had to dodge gang fights on his way to play basketball at Connie Mack Playground.

His mother shared her love of music and entertainment by taking him often to the nearby Uptown Theater, and an older sister schooled him on the ups and downs of Black life in Philadelphia. His mother called him her little Skippy, and family and friends shortened it later to Skip.

He got into art and social causes early, and learned silk screening and other crafts through the Print Center’s Prints in Progress program and sessions at the Brandywine Workshop, and the Fabric Workshop.

He graduated from Murrell Dobbins High School, immersed himself in art and the world around him, and earned a bachelor’s degree at PCA and master’s degree in printmaking at Temple. He met Lynn Washington at PCA, and they married in 1987, had daughter Asha, and lived in North Philadelphia.

“He was generous with us and so present,” his wife said.

Mr. Jackson ate fish but not meat, enjoyed movies and TV, and liked to wander around Fairmount Park. He served an artist residency in Italy in the early 2000s, and colleagues said in a recent tribute: “Philadelphia is challenged to be better, to do better, to be more creative, more inclusive, more experimental because of artists like Homer Jackson.”

His wife said: “He inspired a lot of people. He was masterful at connecting the dots!”

In addition to his wife and daughter, Mr. Jackson is survived by three sisters and other relatives. A brother died earlier.

A celebration of his life is to be held later.