Sculptor, painter, letter cutter, stained glass artist, novelist, and academic, Jonah Jones (1919-2004) was a twentieth-century renaissance man whose life is captured in this biography by his son Peter, with a foreword by his friend Jan Morris.
Born near Newcastle into a family of miners, Jonah Jones first found his passion for art during the Second World War while serving with a number of other artists and craftsmen in the non-combatant Medical Corps. After the War, he fulfilled his dream of settling in Wales and began his ‘on the job’ education as a sculptor and letter cutter. Much of his early work was at Clough Williams-Ellis’s Portmeirion village. The two became close friends and Jones widened his circle to include Richard Hughes, Bertrand Russell, John Cowper Powys and Huw Weldon.
In a varied career Jonah Jones produced intimate sculptures, monumental installations, and beautiful inscriptions, in addition to writing several novels, a biography of Clough Williams-Ellis and a well-regarded survey of the lakes of north Wales. His was a productive life which spanned much of the twentieth century, a century of ‘isms’ (including pacifism and Catholicism) which marked his character and work.
This book is a remarkable portrait of both an artist and of art in the twentieth century.
"... proud, humorous, affable, patriotically Welsh, and deeply committed to his humanitarian ideals and a belief in the transforming power of art..."
The Guardian
Peter Jones is the son of Jonah Jones and worked with him in his studio for a number of years; latterly he was a journalist for BBC Monitoring.
Born near Newcastle into a family of miners, Jonah Jones first found his passion for art during the Second World War while serving with a number of other artists and craftsmen in the non-combatant Medical Corps. After the War, he fulfilled his dream of settling in Wales and began his ‘on the job’ education as a sculptor and letter cutter. Much of his early work was at Clough Williams-Ellis’s Portmeirion village. The two became close friends and Jones widened his circle to include Richard Hughes, Bertrand Russell, John Cowper Powys and Huw Weldon.
In a varied career Jonah Jones produced intimate sculptures, monumental installations, and beautiful inscriptions, in addition to writing several novels, a biography of Clough Williams-Ellis and a well-regarded survey of the lakes of north Wales. His was a productive life which spanned much of the twentieth century, a century of ‘isms’ (including pacifism and Catholicism) which marked his character and work.
This book is a remarkable portrait of both an artist and of art in the twentieth century.
"... proud, humorous, affable, patriotically Welsh, and deeply committed to his humanitarian ideals and a belief in the transforming power of art..."
The Guardian
Peter Jones is the son of Jonah Jones and worked with him in his studio for a number of years; latterly he was a journalist for BBC Monitoring.