Who was David Jones?

Interest in David Jones.

Popularity Jones life and work has seen a resurgence in the last few years, due to an exhibition at Pallant House Chichester, an excellent biography by Thomas Dilworth, an adaption of Jones poem In Parenthesis from Welsh National Opera, TV programmes, and the centenary of WW1.

Vexilla Regis by David Jones. This work shows Jones typical uses of layered mythic and historical references, visual layering in his painting/drawing, and elements of Palimpsest style work-methods.

Who was David Jones?

He is described in Wikipedia as " David jones, Artist-Poet:- Walter David Jones CH, CBE (known as David Jones, 1 November 1895 – 28 October 1974) was both a painter and one of the first-generation British modernist poets. As a painter he worked chiefly in watercolour, painting portraits and animal, landscape, legendary and religious subjects. He was also a wood-engraver and designer of inscriptions. As a writer he was considered by T. S. Eliot to be of major importance, and his work The Anathemata was considered by W. H. Auden to be the best long poem written in English in the 20th century.^[1] Help in forming his work came from his Christian beliefs and Welsh heritage."

David Jones was born in 1895 near Camberwell, in Arabin Road Brockley. His father was Welsh and he grew up fascinated by the culture, myths and stories of Wales and of the ancient world.

Camberwell
In 1909, When he was 13, (3 years younger than the other students in his group) he came to Camberwell and studied Illustration, Drawing and English Literature .

David Jones and Friends pose on the steps of the old entrance to Peckham Rd Building.

The Great War-
In 1915 he enlisted with The Royal Welch Fusiliers and served in France as a private soldier in that conflict.

Jones drawing "Cooking - March 1916-Front line trench on the La Bassée front"

He was wounded at the battle of Mametz Wood, but was able to return to the frontline until the end of the war. His experiences would mark his work and psyche for the rest of his life.

Debris left after Battle of Mametz Wood.

In 1937, his epic WW1 poem In Parenthesis was published by Faber, completion had been delayed due to ill health due to the stress of PTSD that writing each draft brought. In Parenthesis is an amazing work for many reasons. It offers an accurate and atmospheric account of life on the front line, overlaid with mythological allusion and comparison that enriches the narrative, and comments on the reality, history and experience of war.

Frontispiece of In Parenthesis.

Postscript illustration of In Parenthesis.

While he was a sociable man and travelled fairly widely in the UK and the continent, much of his later life was spent in the modest room in Northwick Lodge, Harrow, north London that he called his "dug-out" in reference to the holes that he and his fellow soldiers sheltered in during the Great War. Here Jones would receive guests such as the great composer Igor Stravinsky and his wife, kindly. Stravinsky said that it was like visiting " A holy man in his cell".