Collection: Stanley Jones Archive   1933 - 2023  Follow artist

Stanley Jones (1933-2023) was a key figure in the revival of British post-war printmaking and will be remembered as one of the most important printmakers of the 20th century. As the director of the Curwen Studio, Jones brought British lithography to a level of quality and respect equalled only by the grand ateliers of Paris. Jones was a consummate mediator whose vast legacy is evidence of an enviable combination of vision and humility. He was a trained artist in his own right, and encouraged artists such as Heron, Piper, Sutherland and Bawden to work with him at the Curwen before the war, while the newer generation of David Hockney, Alan Davie, Prunella Clough and Paula Rego followed later. Jones established a particular rapport with sculptors, among them Hepworth, Moore, Butler, Armitage, Chadwick, and Frink.

Stanley Jones had an encyclopaedic knowledge of the craft, a mastery of colour, and an eye for precision. He balanced this technical prowess with artistic sensibility and inspired trust while knowing when to take charge and step in. He was an incurable collector of ephemera, with a curiosity for almost any aesthetic. But the enduring image of Jones from the accounts of others – his champions included Hepworth, Piper and William Scott – is of enthusiasm tempered with extraordinary patience: painstakingly gluing feathers of Japanese straw paper back together for Ceri Richards, mopping up John Piper’s ‘blizzard and scree’ textures and trials in marbling on transfer paper, and ironing more ‘experimental’ transfers to the stone blocks on which his reputation was made.