Jerry MacMichael earned his B.A. here at UNH in 1965. During that time, he was primarily interested in still life. He was a student of John Hatch, a UNH professor also featured in this exhibition. Upon graduation, MacMichael studied briefly at the San Francisco Art Institute and was accepted into the University of Iowa’s M.F.A. program. However, before he could begin his graduate studies, he was drafted into the U.S. Army and deployed to Vietnam.

Upon his return from Vietnam, MacMichael did several shows in eastern Mexico before marrying his wife Alicia, who was from Veracruz, Mexico, in 1971. From 1975 to 1990, he worked in the antiques and restoration business and did not paint. He resumed his painting in 1990 and, since then, has focused primarily on landscape, although he has continued to produce still life compositions as well.

This pencil drawing, A Gift from John, was given to the Museum of Art by the artist, a donation that was spurred, in part, by an earlier gift of a small painting from Mrs. John Hatch, the widow of MacMichael’s mentor and teacher.

Accompanying his gift, MacMichael sent the following note:

In the fall of 2004, Maryanna Hatch made a gift to UNH of a small painting by me that she and John acquired in 1992. I was surprised to learn that Maryanna had given the title of the work as “Perch,” when it was actually an untitled work, depicting a smoked herring on a whitish ground. When I spoke to her later about this painting, she was quite insistent that I had told her and John that the fish in question was indeed a perch.

This confusion must have come about after John presented me in 1996 a small cardboard box containing a desiccated fish wrapped in tissues (Kleenex). The fish had been found on a shore of Great Bay. After I identified the remnants of this fish as being those of a yellow perch, there was a lengthy discussion about this identification, as the yellow perch is strictly a fresh water fish and thus cannot inhabit salt water. I suggested that the fish in question could have been transported by a gull or could have come to the bay by some other plausible accident.

Moreover, I could be certain of my identification after having caught thousands of yellow perch during my many years of ice fishing.

I trust I was believed. John would as likely have agreed that the fish and box and tissues were suitable subjects for a still life of the sort I was doing at the time.

Anyway, in light of Maryanna’s gift, I will be glad if the Museum of Art at UNH will accept another fish close to John and Maryanna Hatch—a drawing that has always been titled “A Gift from John.”

Jerry MacMichael