Jack Jones

This exhibition consisted of over 50 works, both oils and works on paper mainly from his widow’s own collection. Most have never been previously exhibited.

Jack Jones was born in Swansea . . . " in the Hafod on April 11, 1922, in Aberdyberthi Street in the front bedroom. Life for me was a delight and a source of joy and wonder, a one-off opera which was free for the enjoying. Front doors were always open. No one ever stole from a neighbour, indeed there was little to steal for seven out of ten men were unemployed, had been for years and there was little hope for the future. Money was so short. I remember my grandmother sending me to the grocers for two ounces of butter. Carpets were unknown and you had linoleum on the floor if you were lucky. At the top of my street was a notorious black slag heap 100 feet high. The slag heap was our world, our playground. Yet in spite of the poverty and the ill health there was a bubbling effervescence in the Hafod people that transformed them from victims into victors."

 He was sent to the Hafod School. He won a scholarship to Dynefor Grammar School, leaving at16 but with good exam results and took a job as a clerk. He was 17 when the Second World War broke and in March 1941 he joined the RAF and was posted to Egypt. Ear problems prevented him from flying. For one year he did share a tent with an Indian who had been awarded an Oxford MA. Jack Jones was introduced to books he had never read and through his companion gained a hunger to learn. On leaving the RAF in 1946 he promptly enrolled at Normal College Bangor where he trained to be a teacher, followed by the University of Paris in the Sorbonne and the University of Caen, in Normandy. These three avenues led him to become a teacher, an author and a painter.

"I began painting in 1953 soon after returning from the University of Paris. I was not aware of the existence of Lowry and had developed the content and style before I saw any of his pictures. I feel his paintings are sadder than my own."

He returned to the UK to teach in 1951. In 1953 he married a Norman/French woman and had one son. From 1956 to 1972 he was also a script-writer for BBC radio, preparing some 200 broadcasts including plays and dramatised documentaries. Eventually he gave up his post as Head of English at Barnes Grammar School in 1976 to become a full-time painter, his early memories of the Hafod remaining central to his work.

Alcoholism intervened which saw him a homeless alcoholic when he lost both his homes in London and Swansea, and this was followed by serious illness. For the last seven years of his life he recovered from his alcoholism finding strength through the Roman Catholic Church and was able to return to his painting.

He has had many successful exhibitions with several solo shows both in London and Swansea. In 1993, shortly before his death he had a major exhibition at the Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea. His work was collected by many including Sir Anthony Hopkins and Hywel Bennett and may be found in major public collections.  He showed at the Attic Gallery from 1960’s until his death in 1993.

In his funeral oration for Jack Jones, Lord Anderson said " The essence of his message is community, the figures in his urban landscape of terraced houses, the pub, the brooding hill and the chapel are not atomised individuals, alienated, isolated, but warm, cosy, holding hands – a real community".