Reserved

Barbara Jones (1912 - 1978)

Baynard’s Castle

SKU: 11816
Watercolour

Size:
Height – 55.2cm
Width – 72.1cm

DESCRIPTION

Presentation:
framed

‘I have no doubt that discovering Barbara Jones was one of the more important things that happened to me’ – Peter Blake, introduction to The Unsophisticated Arts.

Barbara Jones was one of the most unique voices of twentieth-century British Modernism. Eclectic and indefatigable, she made significant contributions to the fields of Fine Art, mural decoration, illustration, literature, collecting and curatorship.

There is no record of how Jones, still in her twenties, became involved in the Recording Britain Scheme but she was one of the first artist’s to be commissioned and its most prolific contributor. Recording Britain was the brainchild of Sir Kenneth Clark, who saw it as an extension of the Official War Artist scheme. By choosing watercolour painting as the medium of record, Clark hoped that the scheme would also help to preserve this characteristic English art form.

Recording Britain was intended to boost national morale by celebrating the country’s natural beauty and architectural heritage, but it was also a memorial to the war effort itself. The earliest pictures show the landscapes of southern England which were under immediate threat from bomb damage and invasion; in due course the remit was expanded to include those landscapes, buildings and ways of life that were vulnerable to the destructive forces of ‘progress’ – urban expansion, housing developments, road-building and so on.

The scheme employed several women, notably Barbara Jones and Enid Marx. Both were fascinated by English popular art – everything from fairgrounds and follies to topiary and inn signs – and both continued to record these ‘unsophisticated arts’ after the war.

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THE ARTIST

Barbara Jones
Barbara
Jones
1912 - 1978

Barbara Jones first attended art school in Croydon (1931’33) before
winning a scholarship to the Royal College of Art (1933’36), where
she met painter Cliff Barry whom she married in 1941.

A prolific and varied artist, during WWII she worked with
the Pilgrim Trust on the Recording Britain series, making one of
the largest contributions of the 63 artists taking part. She wrote
and illustrated books on design history, many of which are today
considered seminal, including The Unsophisticated Arts, 1951 and
Design for Death, 1967.

In 1951, she organised the Black Eyes and Lemonade: Curating
Popular Art
exhibition held at the Whitechapel Gallery for the Festival
of Britain. A fellow of the Society of Industrial Artists from the same
year, she was made vice president in 1969. She was also a fellow of
the Royal Anthropological Institute and a member of the Society of
Authors. A retrospective exhibition of the contents of her studio was
held at Katharine House Gallery, Marlborough, in 1999.

With thanks to artbiogs.co.uk

MORE PICTURES BY ARTIST

Private
Barbara Jones (1912 - 1978)
Study for Man and his Senses, c. 1966-71
Forthcoming
Barbara Jones (1912 - 1978)
Black Eyes & Lemonade invitation card private view, 1951
Sold
Barbara Jones (1912 - 1978)
Hot Air Balloon
Barbara Jones (1912 - 1978)
Mural design for the Royal Post Office, circa 1961
£24,000
Barbara Jones (1912 - 1978)
Study for Man at Work – a century of technical and social progress, 1961
£2,800
Sold
Barbara Jones (1912 - 1978)
Louis Bleriot flying the English Channel, 1909
Sold
Barbara Jones (1912 - 1978)
Launching of the Holland Submarine No1. at Barrow 1901
Barbara Jones (1912 - 1978)
Out in the Hall, 1960
£44,000
Sold
Barbara Jones (1912 - 1978)
The Wind Tunnel – Royal Aircraft Establishment Farnborough, 1944