Eric's Art Is Where His Home Is

Lockdown has given artist Eric Jackson more time to paint – and new inspiration for his irreverent illustrations of people and places in the North West

- Joanne Goodwin

Back in the day, Eric Jackson’s journalism tutor told the aspiring cub reporter he treated life with too much levity. That ingrained Mancunian sense of humour alluded to, stood him in good stead during his 36 years in the newspaper business, and it’s proving an inspiration today, in the age of Covid-19, at the age of 63, and in his late-blooming second career as an artist.

“I took it as a compliment,” says the former Manchester Evening News arts editor, TV critic and travel editor. He’s also used it to invigorate his collection of modern-retro posters and prints illustrating the quirks and peculiarities of his beloved home city, and of Cheshire, whose towns, people and persona are ripe for the Jackson treatment. His print of Prestbury (the village so beloved of Premiership footballers), for example, shows a 1950s schoolboy in his football kit, holding hands with his gymslipped sweetheart and telling her: “We’ll never afford to live here when we grow up because footballers earn nowt.”

Eric, born in Burnage and now living in Cale Green, Stockport, with his wife Jane, studied at art school before becoming a reporter. He returned to his first love of painting after retiring from his career in journalism, which included university lecturing. “Two things led to me picking up my artwork: I had foot operations and was confined to the house for over three months, which gave me time to paint again. And I saw the Grayson Perry tapestry exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool; it almost moved me to tears and I vowed there and then to take up my brushes,” he says.