John Karl "Jack" Kershaw (Tennessee, 1913-2010), pastel on paper painting of a little girl running through a landscape with Victorian buildings, said to depict the area of Nashville on which the Fairgrounds is now located. Signed "Kershaw" lower right on staircase. Sight – 18-1/2" H x 24" W. Born in 1913 in Missouri, John Karl “Jack” Kershaw moved to Nashville with his parents as a child. He studied art at Vanderbilt University and in the 1920s became associated with a group of intellectuals who called themselves The Fugitive Poets. In the 1930s, he worked as Federal director of the Tennessee Art Project prior to World War II (a job in which he worked as one of William Edmondson’s supervisors) and was in charge of plates and research for the National Index of Design in Middle Tennessee. He served as an art consultant for The Kenyon Review and for Nashville Mayor Ben West. Kershaw was a member of the first Tennessee Arts Commission and, during the 1950s, was Chairman of the Nashville Committee for the Coordination of the Arts. Kershaw graduated from Law School in the 1960s and made headlines as the attorney who represented James Earl Ray in his unsuccessful efforts to obtain a jury trial. However, Kersaw continued to paint, sculpt and draw throughout his life. For much of his career, Kershaw kept records of what he made and who bought it; purchasers of his art from 1938-1980 included recording artists Dinah Shore and Grace Creswell, Robert Penn Warren, Tupper Saussy, The City of Nashville, and Prince Alexander of Hohenzollern (who commissioned a portrait). Kershaw exhibited at the Holbrook Museum (University of Georgia at Athens, with Phillip Perkins), Florence State Teachers’ College, University of Connecticut (one man exhibition), the University of Kentucky, Yale University, University of Tennessee (one man exhibition), Peabody College, the University of Chicago, McNeese State College, Mercer University, Spring Hill College in Mobile, Ala., Kalamazoo College in Michigan, Carlton College in Minnesota, Bridgewater College in Virginia, The Centennial Club of Nashville; the Ray Jordon Gallery, Cohen Memorial and Art Investments Gallery in Nashville; and Avanti Gallery and Caravan House in New York City. Condition: Overall very good condition, some slight wear to edges. Unframed.