14th Jun, 2023 12:00

Fine Paintings and Works on Paper

 
  Lot 44
 

44

DAVID JONES (BRITISH 1895-1974)

CRUCIFIXION - 'TYWYSOG CARIAD'
inscribed BRENHNV CARIAD on the cross
pencil and coloured crayon
31.1 x 24.2cm; 11 1/2 x 9 1/2in
47 x 40cm; 18 1/2 x 15 3/4in (framed)

Property of a European Collector

Provenance:
Anthony d'Offay, London
Christopher Gibbs, Clifton Hampden
Sale, Christie’s, London,The Manor House at Clifton Hampden, Home of Christopher Gibbs, 25 September 2000, lot 328
Purchased at the above sale by present owner

Exhibited:
London, The Tate Gallery, David Jones, 1981, no. 62, illustrated in the catalogue

Literature:
Agenda, 'David Jones Special Issue', 1967, illustrated

Executed circa 1929, Twysog Cariad and Brenhynu Cariad are Welsh for Prince of Love and King of Love.

Jones developed the theme of the Crucifixion in the 1920s in all his favoured media, including as a woodcut, in pencil and crayon, in watercolour and as a free standing wood carving. Of all these iterations, the present example appears to be one of the largest. The last comparable work to be offered at auction was in the David Bowie sale at Sotheby's on 11th November 2016, lot 101, which sold for £93,750.

Described by Kenneth Clark as 'a remarkable genius', as a writer Jones was praised by both T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden, in particular for his epic modernist poem In Parenthesis. Started in 1928 and published ten years later, his verse captures his harrowing time in the trenches in the the First World War. It was an experience that affected his work, especially in the decade that followed, and inspired his strong Christian faith. Another deep rooted source of inspiration was his strong Welsh heritage. Already, when in his 'teens at Camberwell School of Art he was committed to becoming an illustrator of Welsh history.

After the War Jones studied at Westminster School of Art under Bernard Meninsky (see lot 41). He converted to Catholicism in 1921 and moved out of London to Ditchling to join Eric Gill and his family in Sussex. There he learnt wood engraving and became postulant in the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic, the community founded by Gill dedicated to work, faith and domestic life. When Gill left the Guild in 1924 to move with some of the community to a former monastery at Capel-y-ffin north of Abergavenny in Wales Jones followed, spending the next few years working in the Black Mountains and at the Benedictine Monastery on Caldy island, off the Pembrokshire coast.

Jones was naturally drawn to working on paper, finding pencil and watercolour far more sympathetic to his purpose than oil paint. His sensitivity to his media is especially acute in the present work. Describing the drawing technique that characterised Jones' work during the 1920s, Paul Hills comments: 'The individual marks of pencil and brush share a distinctive character, irregular yet rhythmic, tremulous yet bold. He has rediscovered the handwriting of sharp jabs... which will become the unmistakable signature of his visual art. Individually these marks may appear graceless, undisciplined, even messy; yet at the right distance they signal across the paper in vibrant patterns. The matrix of white paper is crucial to this essential linear art; the character of each touch must tell.' (exh. cat. David Jones, 1981, p. 25).

Throughout his life his deeply held religious conviction determined much of what he drew and painted; there was invariably a spiritual element underlying even the most anodyne subject. Biblical themes that he drew on for inspiration ranged from the Madonna and Child to the Mocking of Jesus and the Paschal Lamb as well as the present theme. But in each he reflected his own very personal, often folkloric and typically Welsh character. As Gill said of Jones' aesthetic: 'What concerns him is the universal thing showing through the particular thing... The eye sees particular things, but the man's delight in the physical vision is checked by the mind's apprehension informing it' (exh. cat. David Jones, 1981, p. 19).

In the Agenda special issue of 1967 dedicated to David Jones' work published by William Cookson, it was noted that the present work is an 'Unfinished study for the proposed work illustrating the Oblation and Immolation of the Cross and of the Altar in a Welsh hill-setting'. In the catalogue accompanying the 1981 Tate Gallery retrospective on David Jones, curator Paul Hills comments that the drawing is 'one of Jones's first statements of the inseparable nature of the Crucifixion and the Eucharist', a theme later taken up in his poem The Fatigue.' (exh. cat. David Jones, 1981, p. 91).

ARR may apply

Sold for £8,000


 

CRUCIFIXION - 'TYWYSOG CARIAD'
inscribed BRENHNV CARIAD on the cross
pencil and coloured crayon
31.1 x 24.2cm; 11 1/2 x 9 1/2in
47 x 40cm; 18 1/2 x 15 3/4in (framed)

Property of a European Collector

Provenance:
Anthony d'Offay, London
Christopher Gibbs, Clifton Hampden
Sale, Christie’s, London,The Manor House at Clifton Hampden, Home of Christopher Gibbs, 25 September 2000, lot 328
Purchased at the above sale by present owner

Exhibited:
London, The Tate Gallery, David Jones, 1981, no. 62, illustrated in the catalogue

Literature:
Agenda, 'David Jones Special Issue', 1967, illustrated

Executed circa 1929, Twysog Cariad and Brenhynu Cariad are Welsh for Prince of Love and King of Love.

Jones developed the theme of the Crucifixion in the 1920s in all his favoured media, including as a woodcut, in pencil and crayon, in watercolour and as a free standing wood carving. Of all these iterations, the present example appears to be one of the largest. The last comparable work to be offered at auction was in the David Bowie sale at Sotheby's on 11th November 2016, lot 101, which sold for £93,750.

Described by Kenneth Clark as 'a remarkable genius', as a writer Jones was praised by both T.S. Eliot and W.H. Auden, in particular for his epic modernist poem In Parenthesis. Started in 1928 and published ten years later, his verse captures his harrowing time in the trenches in the the First World War. It was an experience that affected his work, especially in the decade that followed, and inspired his strong Christian faith. Another deep rooted source of inspiration was his strong Welsh heritage. Already, when in his 'teens at Camberwell School of Art he was committed to becoming an illustrator of Welsh history.

After the War Jones studied at Westminster School of Art under Bernard Meninsky (see lot 41). He converted to Catholicism in 1921 and moved out of London to Ditchling to join Eric Gill and his family in Sussex. There he learnt wood engraving and became postulant in the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic, the community founded by Gill dedicated to work, faith and domestic life. When Gill left the Guild in 1924 to move with some of the community to a former monastery at Capel-y-ffin north of Abergavenny in Wales Jones followed, spending the next few years working in the Black Mountains and at the Benedictine Monastery on Caldy island, off the Pembrokshire coast.

Jones was naturally drawn to working on paper, finding pencil and watercolour far more sympathetic to his purpose than oil paint. His sensitivity to his media is especially acute in the present work. Describing the drawing technique that characterised Jones' work during the 1920s, Paul Hills comments: 'The individual marks of pencil and brush share a distinctive character, irregular yet rhythmic, tremulous yet bold. He has rediscovered the handwriting of sharp jabs... which will become the unmistakable signature of his visual art. Individually these marks may appear graceless, undisciplined, even messy; yet at the right distance they signal across the paper in vibrant patterns. The matrix of white paper is crucial to this essential linear art; the character of each touch must tell.' (exh. cat. David Jones, 1981, p. 25).

Throughout his life his deeply held religious conviction determined much of what he drew and painted; there was invariably a spiritual element underlying even the most anodyne subject. Biblical themes that he drew on for inspiration ranged from the Madonna and Child to the Mocking of Jesus and the Paschal Lamb as well as the present theme. But in each he reflected his own very personal, often folkloric and typically Welsh character. As Gill said of Jones' aesthetic: 'What concerns him is the universal thing showing through the particular thing... The eye sees particular things, but the man's delight in the physical vision is checked by the mind's apprehension informing it' (exh. cat. David Jones, 1981, p. 19).

In the Agenda special issue of 1967 dedicated to David Jones' work published by William Cookson, it was noted that the present work is an 'Unfinished study for the proposed work illustrating the Oblation and Immolation of the Cross and of the Altar in a Welsh hill-setting'. In the catalogue accompanying the 1981 Tate Gallery retrospective on David Jones, curator Paul Hills comments that the drawing is 'one of Jones's first statements of the inseparable nature of the Crucifixion and the Eucharist', a theme later taken up in his poem The Fatigue.' (exh. cat. David Jones, 1981, p. 91).

ARR may apply