In memory

John Shipman Osler, Jr.

1935-2023

After 87 years of vibrant life, John Osler of Grosse Pointe Shores died on Saturday, March 25, in the wake of a heart attack. Up to the moment of the cardiac arrest, his days were full of activity: painting a portrait, cutting up wood in the yard, hauling Forgotten Harvest food boxes at Crossroads East, advising his grandchildren and enjoying the day with his wife of 62 years, Phyllis. He had friends everywhere, from the vineyards of Provence to the Boundary Waters of Canada to the streets of Detroit's East side. His paintings portrayed jazz musicians famous and not; the disempowered and marginalized and members of Congress; young people and old; and he imbued love and meaning into them all. Bassist Ron Carter saw him as a fellow traveler, writing that John Osler's work "celebrates, as I do, the symbiosis of music and art." The poet Reginald Dwayne Betts said that "he gets folks in these moments that give them real dignity."

Born the child of artists, John grew up in the Detroit area and studied engineering at Cornell University, a course of study that included a summer working on the launch stages for the Mercury space exploration project. He began his career in commercial art working for a studio founded by his father, and later represented photographers and became a founder and principal with Mid-Coast studios in Troy. There, he and his colleagues developed a lighting system, derived from an existing film technology, that revolutionized commercial still photography. During this period, he sometimes collaborated with his lifelong friends, art directors Jack Frakes and Dennis Plansker.

In his early 50's, John left Mid-Coast studios to focus on his own painting and photography. It was thrilling to watch him paint. He wrote this about his process: "Sometimes when someone I have spent time with emerges from a canvas I will stop and raise a toast to welcome him. At that moment I am most alive." He painted people he met in homeless shelters, those in the back row of a tiny church, market preachers, winemakers, and others. After spending time with civil rights legend and Congressman John Lewis, he painted Lewis with a mantle of courage and solidity, echoing a much earlier portrait he had done of Winston Churchill. He became the house artist for the Dirty Dog Jazz Café, where some of his work adorns the wall just as it does in homes and businesses across the country. His photographs and paintings of musicians became prominent among his work.

John was the center of gravity for an extended and loving family that produced seven grandchildren who each embraced his interests (ranging from engineering to social justice), like light refracting through a prism: Lily Osler (Sara), John Shipman Osler III, Benjamin Nesbit, Alexa Easter, Griffin Nesbit, Luke Osler and Stephen Easter.  A man who would stop the car on a family trip so all could take in the beauty of the light at dusk playing on the side of a barn, John and his wife Phyllis raised three children who loved him dearly: Mark (Anne), Will (Kim), and Kathy (Bryan). He is also survived by his older sister, Elizabeth (Betsie) Robinson, nephew John Robinson and niece Elizabeth Robinson.

In keeping with his core ethic of "people before stuff," a donation to Forgotten Harvest or Doctors Without Borders would be more appropriate than flowers; this was a man whose ancient, creaking Toyota was often jammed full of items he was taking from a donor to those in need. A celebration of his life will be held in late Spring. It's certain that those coming to remember him will include some who think of him as a hockey coach, others who engaged him as a mentor in the arts, a few who knew him as a child, and a mob of others who at least once drew close to his big heart and keen mind, all of them knowing what a loss his death is to this world.