Jack McLarty has lived most of his life in Portland, Oregon. His family moved to Portland from Seattle in 1921. After attending the Museum Art School, he left Portland in 1940 to study at the American Artists School in New York. At the end of two years, McLarty decided New York did not suit him as a permanent home and returned to Portland. By 1945 he had reconnected with the Museum Art School accepting a teaching fellowship in lithography. He joined the regular faculty in 1947. McLarty and his wife, Barbara, opened the Image Gallery in 1961. For over thirty years the gallery was a major part of the Portland art scene. McLarty traveled to Europe for the first time in 1963 and while there studied with the Belgian printmaker Paul Franck. In the following decades McLarty would travel and work with a variety of artists in Japan and Mexico.

McLarty’s work with artists in Mexico has developed a strong interest in folk art. He also describes his work as surrealistic. Other influences include Hieronymous Bosch, the Brueghels, Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, Max Beckman, and 20th century Japanese printmakers. Themes in his work refer to the conflict between civilized and brute impulses and show that nothing is quite what it appears. Urban Portland and the Willamette River are common subjects, but are presented in a fantastical, dream-like manner. Games, sports, toys, and children are frequent images that he transforms into archetypes conveying a message about the dual nature of humans and the worlds we have created. McLarty is represented in numerous collections including the Salem Art Association, the Hallie Ford Museum, the Portland Art Museum, the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, the Seattle Art Museum, and the Smithsonian. He has also been commissioned for public pieces such as the murals at City Hall, Civic Auditorium, Buckman School, and Laurelhurst School all located in Portland, and the stained glass window at Sacred Heart Chapel in Newport.