Jones (David)

, , 1930.
a subtly powerful image, primarily composed to illustrate Sir Thomas Malory’s late 15th century prose compilation, ‘Le Morte d’Arthur’, but seemingly also echoing the Christian iconography of both the Pietà and of St Sebastian. This single plate perfectly encapsulates the interwoven strands of influence on the artist’s creativity. David Michael Jones CH (1895-1974), was a London-born artist and poet of Welsh descent, with which he strongly identified in his interest in myths and medieval legends. He served extensively on the front line during the First World War, where he was wounded at the Somme, and suffered psychologically for the rest of his life. In the latter stages of his artistic training he was drawn to the Guild of Catholic craftsmen at Ditchling under the guidance of Eric Gill, eventually converting to catholicism. He was engaged to Gill’s daughter, Petra, in the later 1920s, until she broke it off to marry someone else, though her features continued to permeate the female figures in his art. All of these elements of legend and spirituality, of warfare and trauma, of succour, pain and death are represented here, in what was to be one of his last forays into printmaking before his eyesight became too weak for the medium..
197 by 154mm (7¾ by 6 inches).