Jack Coutu

Who is Jack Coutu?

Jack Coutu ARE ARCA is an English printmaker, sculptor, etcher, engraver, carver, watercolourist and teacher. He was influenced by Oriental art.

He was born Raymond John Coutu at Farnham, Surrey, England, and was educated at Farnham Grammar School. From 1947 to 1951, he studied at the Farnham School of Art, followed by the Royal College of Art in London from 1951 to 1954 and the Central School of Art from 1951 to 1955. At the Central School of Art, Merlin Evans was an influence on Coutu's printmaking.

Coutu taught printmaking at the Central School of Art from 1957 to 1965 and then at the West Surrey College of Art and Design in Farnham from 1965 to 1985. In 1968, he started to carve netsuke and he joined the Netsuke Kenkyukai Society, based in the US. He is also a member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers and the Printmakers Council.

Jack Coutu has exhibited at the Royal Academy in London, netsuke conventions, jointly with Michael Rothenstein at the Alecto Gallery in 1965, and at the Graphic Arts Gallery in 1968. His work is in the permanent collections of the Arts Council of Great Britain, Cartwright Hall art gallery in Bradford, King Gustave of Sweden, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.