David Jones (1895-1974)

David Jones was a watercolourist, oil-painter, engraver and writer. He trained first at Camberwell School of Art (1909-1914) and then, during the First World War, spent the years 1915 to 1918 in the trenches, an experience that profoundly affected him. From 1919 to 1921 he was at Westminster School of Art, after which he joined Eric Gill’s community at Ditchling in Sussex, where he learned wood-engraving. In 1924 he moved to North Wales with Eric Gill, and was for a while engaged to be married to Gill’s daughter Petra. Jones was forced to give up engraving in the early 1930s because of eye problems. He also suffered from mental ill-health, having a first nervous breakdown in 1932, which prevented him from painting for a number of years, and then another in 1947.

In the late 1920s Jones illustrated several books with his engravings; these included The Book of Jonah, The Chester Play of the Deluge, Seven Fables of Aesop and The Ancient Mariner. Jones became a member of the 7 & 5 Society (proposed by Ben Nicholson) in 1928, and exhibited with them until 1933. He also exhibited at the Goupil Gallery and St George’s Gallery in the late 1920s. A major retrospective exhibition of his work was held at the Tate Gallery in London in 1981.