International and Contemporary | Modern British/Post War | Photography | Archive | Index
Barbara JonesBarbara Jones (1912-1978) was an English painter, designer, muralist, illustrator and author. She went to Croydon School of Art before studying Mural Decoration at the Royal College of Art (1933-1937), where she followed Edward Bawden, John Piper, Eric Ravilious and Edward Ardizonne. From 1946-49, Jones was commissioned by the Pilgrim Trust and Oxford University Press for the Recording Britain project, which recorded architecture and the changing face of Britain in a series of watercolours by Jones and several other artists including John Piper and Michael Rothenstein. Jone's thirty-one watercolours for this project are now in collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum.
After the war, Jones produced murals for the Britain Can Make It exhibition (1947), the Festival of Britain exhibition (1951); for several P&O passenger ships, and also for hotels and restaurants, exhibitions and schools. She also designed book jackets and illustrated numerous books and periodicals. In 1951, Jones organised Black Eyes and Lemonade, a Festival of Britain exhibition of British popular and traditional arts at the Whitechapel Gallery. Her interest in the field of popular culture and vernacular arts led to her book on the subject, The Unsophisticated Arts (1951) which brought together a series of articles she had produced for the Architectural Review. This book, and the exhibition she organised for the Whitechapel Gallery in 1951 of British Popular and Traditional Art, Black Eyes and Lemonade, influenced some British Pop Art artists of the 1950s and 60s, including Peter Blake. Other books included Follies and Grottoes (1953) and Design for Death (1967).
