“Jack died peacefully at home, surrounded by his favorite artworks and his loving wife,” said Susan Warner, Jack Warner’s wife, in an email to The Tuscaloosa News.
Although born in Decatur, Illinois, Warner, moved to Tuscaloosa as a child. After graduating from the Culver Military Academy and receiving a degree in business administration from Washington and Lee University, Warner went on to serve in the United States Army from 1941 to 1945.
He then began his nearly 60-year-long career with the Gulf States Paper Corporation, a pulp and paper mill, where he served as the company’s president and chairman of the board for 36 years.
The University of Alabama’s President Stuart Bell addressed the passing of Warner.
“We have all lost a legend,” said Bell. “Throughout his long and distinguished life, Jack Warner has been a generous benefactor in this community, across the nation and here at The University of Alabama. His generosity was surpassed only by his devotion to his passions and his steadfast friendship.”
Warner contributed to the University on multiple occasions, such as in 1996 when he refurnished the President’s Mansion, a generosity Bell acknowledged in his statement.
Warner was also known for his love of American art. In 2010, he was awarded the Frederic Edwin Church award for assembling one of the greatest private collections of American art, and in 2011 The Metropolitan Museum of American Art in New York City honored Warner’s contributions to and support of the museum by creating the Jack and Susan Warner Hudson River Gallery.
