Stern View LK 57 Zulu Skiff, Maggie, watercolour by Jack Chesterman, 2005

My buddy Jack Chesterman, who passed away at the age of 84, was a former art instructor at Leeds Metropolitan University who created a significant body of work that portrayed marine life. Paintings of boat hulls in watercolor were one of his specialties.

Especially in his later years, Jack frequently displayed his work, holding solo exhibitions at places like the Dean Clough galleries in Halifax, the Ferens in Hull, the Shetland Museum and Archive in Lerwick, the Gallery in Oldham, the ISIA gallery in Urbino, Italy, and, most recently, the Maritime Museum of Tasmania in Hobart, Australia.

Additionally, his works of art are included in a variety of public collections across the globe, including those at the Stedelijk Museum in the Netherlands and the Greenwich Library in London.

Jack Chesterman, whose paintings reflected sea life, was a keen sailor in his spare time

In later life, Jack adopted his mother's last name. Molly Chesterman and her husband Vivyan, a lieutenant colonel in the British army, had a son named Jack in Lahore, pre-partition India (now in Pakistan). When Jack was eight years old, his family moved to Somerset, England, where he attended Wellington School.

After completing his studies, he worked as a farmhand close to Castle Howard in North Yorkshire, where he spent the majority of his earnings on paint, brushes, and art-related publications. Three years of national service in the Household Cavalry in the late 1950s put his passion in painting on hold, but after being demobbed in 1960, he enrolled in studies at Leeds College of Art, which were followed by three years at the Royal College of Art.

After earning his degree in 1966, he went back to Leeds College of Art and began teaching graphic arts there. In 1968, he transferred to the newly established Leeds Polytechnic as a senior lecturer and eventually advanced to principal lecturer, director of printmaking studies, and BA graphic design course leader.

Jack established connections between Leeds Polytechnic's visual arts department and the Henry Moore Foundation when he was my instructor there in the early 1990s, starting an artists-in-residence program. He started staff and student exchange programs in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain when the polytechnic became Leeds Metropolitan University (now Leeds Beckett University).

Jack started working on some of the creative endeavors his teaching profession had prevented after he retired in 1996.

Life Boat From the Oceanic, watercolour by Jack Chesterman, 2005

In the early 2000s, he also became engaged in a government-funded educational program called Creative Partnerships' Excellence in the Cities, which encouraged sketching in Tees Valley, Bradford, and Leeds schools in an effort to help pupils develop a sense of place identification.

Jack enjoyed sailing in addition to painting. In the Lake District and Yorkshire Dales, he also took pleasure in walking.

When both of them were attending Leeds School of Art, he first met Jo Cheeseman. In 1964, they were married, and Jo started teaching painting. Along with their children Hannah and Sam and grandkids Jack, Alice, and Seth, she lives on.

Thanks to Chris Taylor at The Guardian whose reporting provided the original basis for this story.