He began exhibiting paintings in 1950; has been included in numerous group exhibitions, nationally and internationally, since that time at museums, galleries and universities. Boynton was a key figure in thepost-World War II Houston arts scene. According to aHouston Chronicle article written byDouglas Britt, Boynton garnered national attention in the 1950s and 1960s for hismodernist, largelyabstract paintings.[3]
In 2006 Jack Boynton said:
Artists in Houston in the 50s, 60s and 70s would have beenJim Love, Dick Wray, Herb Mears, Dorothy Hood,Charles Pebworth. Lowell Collins still had status in the 50s, and Henri Gadbois. Mildred Dixon Sherwood had some prominence. Of course, people like Stella Sullivan, you know. Stella was sort of conservative, even then. The 50s was sort of the interim that Jerry MacAgy had big influence, and she had people that were either very enthusiastic about her, or were very negative about her. She didn’t seem to hit the halfway mark. Nobody was indifferent. Then in the 60s I moved toSan Francisco, and back in ’62—and somewhere in that interim Sweeney came to town, and Sweeney sort of had sway for a while.[4]
In 2009 Susie Kalil Said:
The term "breakthrough" is often used to denote a major accomplishment of an artist, the works in which he achieves indisputable progress. But what determines a "breakthrough"? What happens when an artist begins a new style? Does he shut off one room before entering another? Or does he extend the space that already exists? Spanning some six decades, Jack Boynton's paintings and works on paper (Lithographs) allow us to measure the way that one person's experiences and sensibility have been expressed in visual impulses. Significantly, Boynton turns arbitrariness into a fine art and does so without sticking to any one approach or medium. Rather, each encounter with a cultural symbol, everyday object or personal memory is reflected in the physical sensuality and structural clarity of his art. Oscillating between past and present, formal elegance and pressurized energy, the exhibition reveals Boynton to be an artist constantly changing and enlarging the sphere in which he functions. Through paintings, Boynton reflects the natural world in order to heighten awareness of our place in the universal.[5]
They arrived in Houston within about eighteen months of each other, Jack Boynton coming first fromFort Worth, freshly out of formal training atTCU. He brought with him the Modernist influences of theFort Worth circle, and particularly the non-objective "post-circle" tendencies garnered through his association with the likes of Charles Williams, McKie Trotter and others. Richard Stout, aBeaumont native, arrived next. Coming to the city from the venerableChicago Art Institute, he selectedHouston as a home from which to launch a career and to perfect his energetic and dynamic paintings motif. Both young artists quickly set roots in Houston. They found encouragement here and developed a personal collegiality that led them to share a studio together for a time during the late 1950s through the early 1960s.[6]
