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Raymond Ray-Jones R.E., A.R.C.A., S.G.A., painter-etcher

Raymond Ray-Jones (31 Aug 1886 in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire - 26 Feb 1942 in Carbis Bay near St Ives, Cornwall) was an English painter-etcher. Born Raymond Jones, he was the eldest son and second child of Samuel Shepley Jones, a cabinet maker, and his wife Martha Hulme.

According to the memorial to him on the Tameside website he is best known for his self portrait ‘The Velvet Hat’, which he etched probably c.1910. When exhibited at ‘Modern Masters of Etching’ at the Leicester Galeries in London in 1923 it received great critical acclaim.

Leaving St Ann’s school in Ashton at the age of fourteen, he worked first at the National Gas & Oil Co. Ltd., and studied part time at Ashton's Heginbottom School of Art under J.H. Cronshaw. He showed considerable talent, sufficient to gain a county scholarship and a place at the Royal College of Art in Kensington, London in 1907 – a considerable achievement in those days. At the R.C.A. he studied under Prof Gerald Moira and Sir Frank Short RA, P.R.E., and from May 1911 attended the studio of Jean-Paul Laurens, known as Academie Julian, in Paris, where he was awarded the Grand Prix and Medal for portrait painting.

In 1913, on the advice of his tutors, he changed his name to Raymond Ray-Jones, and by 1914 had a studio at Joubert Studios, 14 Jubilee Place, London SW3, off the King's Road. He became an Associate of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers on 17 March 1914 (now the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers). His service during the First World War (1914-18) was as a clerk or ostler in the Royal Horse Artillery at Woolwich. This was followed by a period of penury in Jubilee Place, when through Frank Short his talent came to the notice of Edward Holroyd Pearce (later Lord Pearce), who was then an undergraduate at Oxford University. Ray-Jones was an early member of the Society of Graphic Art (now the Society of Graphic Fine Art). He married Pearce’s sister, Effie Irene Pearce, on 12 February 1926, and in the same year was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers.

Ray-Jones was first and foremost an etcher – and a meticulous draughtsman, - with buildings as his main subject, though he also worked in chalk, oil and watercolour. Unfortunately the market for etchings, which had been boyant earlier, started to collapse at about the time of his marriage. On the Blue Plaque erected to his memory on the Public Library at Ashton-under-Lyne, Sir Frank Short is quoted as saying in a lecture: "An artist must be a workman; and an artist afterwards, if it pleases God", and Ray-Jones was pre-eminently a craftsman. It is said that he had little sympathy with the work of modern artists such as Picasso, and his concern for detail and accuracy, almost unmatched even amongst etchers, meant that his body of work was small. He was a gentle, rather shy man. In 1931 after the birth of Alan, their first son, when they lived at Woodham Walter in Essex, Ray-Jones and his wife moved to Carbis Bay outside St Ives in Cornwall, where they had two more children – Philip in 1933 and in 1941 Anthony (Tony Ray-Jones), who was later to become well known as a professional photographer.

He was a member of the St Ives Society of Artists from 1935-1937, when artists such as Stanley Spencer, Laura Knight and Frank Brangwyn were also involved with it. Creating a Splash, which records the society at that time, includes a full page reproduction of the self-portrait.

The outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 cut him off from the two countries – France and Italy – which had been the main source of inspiration for his etchings and paintings. This enforced separation, probably combined with financial worries, led to depression, and he died by his own hand at Carbis Bay in 1942. He was buried in the old churchyard at Lelant Church on 2 March 1942. So far as is known, no complete catalogue exists of his etchings, paintings, and drawings, but they come on to the market occasionally, and are highly sought.

References

Exhibitions and Museums

Works by Raymond Ray-Jones have been acquired by the British Museum; the Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington; Trinity College, Cambridge; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Contemporary Art Soc.; City Art Gallery, Manchester; Mappin Art Gallery, Sheffield; Ipswich Art Gallery, etc.

Prints of the self-portrait are held by the National Portrait Gallery, the British Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

He exhibited at the Royal Academy, the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers, the Society of Graphic Art; New English Art Club, Bristol, Liverpool etc.; and at International and other exhibitions abroad: – in Paris, Venice, Hamburg, Dresden, Zurich, Geneva, Toronto, Sydney, Dunedin etc

British Council: Contemporary British Prints and Drawings from the Wakefield Collection,http://collection.britishcouncil.org/html/exhibition/exhibition.aspx?id=14903

External Links

1)The Ray-Jones family website

2)Blue Plaque, Central Library, Ashton-Under-Lyne, Lancs – text by P.R.B. Sanderson.

3)Creating a Splash. The St Ives Society of Artists – the first 25 years (1927-1952) by David Tovey