Colin Jones (photographer)
Colin Jones (8 August 1936 – 22 September 2021) was an English ballet dancer-turned-photographer and prolific photojournalist of post-war Britain.[1]
Jones documented facets of social history as diverse as the vanishing industrial working lives of the North East coalfields (Grafters), delinquent Afro-Caribbean youth in London (The Black House), hedonistic 1960s '
Ballet dancer
Jones was born in 1936. He experienced a war childhood; his father, a
There was a Hungarian photographer called Michael Peto who used to hang around the corps du ballet when I was a dancer. He didn't take pictures in the way that the rest did. Instead, he crept around the back and caught us lounging around. Dancers come alive in front of the curtain, but he wanted to snap the reality: the endless tedium of rehearsals in dusty church halls in the North East, the sheer misery of it all. He really inspired me and I became obsessed by the work of other Central European photographers such as André Kertész, who was also a great influence on Cartier-Bresson.[7]
Photographer
Jones took advantage of the ballet company's travel to photograph extensively in the streets of Tokyo, Hong Kong and the Gorbals, Glasgow in 1961. Driving with fellow dancers from Newcastle to Sunderland that year, he saw, north of Birmingham, coal searchers on the spoil-heaps. While on tour in the early 1960s, Jones witnessed the burning of slums in the Philippines, which had been happening while he was sitting across the bay in Manila sipping champagne. The sight of children being bulldozed while they were still in bed affected him greatly, and he said, "I think it was then that I decided to leave the ballet. This is what was happening while I was sipping Krug". Shortly after he turned towards Photography.[4]
In 1962, having changed his career to become a photographer
The Black House
Jones was commissioned by the
Recognition
Jones' work has been published in major publications including The Times,
Solo exhibitions have been devoted to his work: The Black House: Colin Jones at
In 2024 his nephew Kim Jones published an album of Jones’s works for Dior Homme spring fashion show.
Exhibitions
Solo exhibitions
- The Black House: Colin Jones, The Photographers' Gallery, London, 1977[31][32]
- The Black House – Colin Jones, Michael Hoppen Gallery, London, 2007[citation needed]
- Fifty Years of The Who by Colin Jones, Proud Camden, 2014[33]
- A Life with The Royal Ballet by Colin Jones, Proud Chelsea, 2015[33][34]
- Retrospective – Colin Jones, Michael Hoppen Gallery, London, 2016[35]
- The Who: Colin Jones, Aperture Leica, London, 2019/20[citation needed]
- Backstage at the Ballet North Wall Arts Centre, Oxford, 2020[36]
- Colin Jones Ballet in the 1960s TopFoto digital Gallery[37]
Group exhibitions
- Country Matters, James Hyman Gallery, London, 2013. Photographs by Jones, Bert Hardy, Roger Mayne, Tony Ray-Jones, Homer Sykes, Chris Killip, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, Martin Parr, Mark Power, Anna Fox, and Ken Grant.[27][38]
- Jerusalem, Michael Hoppen Gallery, London, 2011. Photographs by Jones, John Davies, Charles Jones.[39]
- Stars of the East – Peter Blake, Colin Jones, Frank Worth, Britart Gallery, London, 2002[40]
Publications
Publications by Jones
- Grafters. ISBN 978-0-7148-4253-0.
Publications with others
- Great Rivers of the World. London: ISBN 978-0008383381. Edited by Alexander Fraterand with photographs by Jones.
- The Black House. Munich; London: ISBN 978-3791336718. Photographs by Jones and text by Mike Phillips.
Collections
Jones' work is held in the following permanent collection:
- National Portrait Gallery, London: 2 prints (as of 30 September 2021)[41]
References
- ^ Crookston, Peter (1 October 2021). "Colin Jones obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 October 2021.
- ^ Anna Burnside, "Sixties uncovered", Sunday Times (London, England), 20 May 2007, p.1
- ^ Schofield, Jack, 1947- (1983). How famous photographers work. Amphoto, New York, N.Y pp. 32–25
- ^ a b "Colin Jones Obituary". The Times. 4 October 2021. Retrieved 7 October 2021.
- ^ a b Spencer, Charles (25 January 2011). "Colin Jones: An early prototype of Billy Elliot". London: The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 27 May 2016.
- ISBN 978-0-571-24302-0
- ^ a b "The photographer feels that modern dancers lack passion", The Times (London, England), 23 December 2000: The Times Digital Archive. Web. 22 May 2016.
- ISBN 978-0-240-81300-4
- ^ "Books: Dockers' families a rein the frame", Liverpool Echo (Liverpool, UK), 22 March 2003: 29.
- ISBN 978-0-7148-4253-0
- ^ Strangleman, T. (2005). Book Review: Grafters. Work, Employment & Society, 19(2), 445–446.
- ^ Prowse, P. (2005). Book Review: Labor Revitalization: Global Perspectives and New Initiatives. Work, Employment & Society, 19(2), 443–445.
- ^ Joanna Pitman. "Picture gallery of delights and images to conjure with." The Times (London, England), 7 December 2002: 19[S3]. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 22 May 2016.
- ^ Maximum Who: The Who in the Sixties: The Photographs of Tony Gale, Colin Jones, Chris Morphet, Dominique Tarle, David Wedgebury and Baron Wolman. Genesis Publications, 2002.
- ^ Neill, A., Kent, M., & Daltrey, R. (2009). Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere: The Complete Chronicle of The Who 1958–1978. Sterling Publishing Company.
- Petticoat5 December 1970
- ^ Sunday Times Magazine, 'On the Edge of the Ghetto, The Way They See It', 30 September 1973, pp.28–46.[1]
- ISBN 978-3-7913-3671-8)
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link - ^ Brooke, S. (2014). "Revisiting Southam Street: Class, Generation, Gender, and Race in the Photography of Roger Mayne." Journal of British Studies, 53(02), 453–496.
- ISBN 978-3-7913-3671-8
- ^ Williams, John (2008). Michael X: A life in black & white. Century, London
- ^ a b Arts Council of Great Britain (1979), Arts Council collection: A concise, illustrated catalogue of paintings, drawings, photographs, and sculpture bought for the Arts Council of Great Britain between 1942 and 1978. The Council, 1979
- ^ Colin Jones. "Rudolf Nureyev in his Sixties Heyday." Times (London, England), 16 December 2006: 4[S5]. The Times Digital Archive. Web. 22 May 2016.
- ^ "Colin Jones". The Hyman Collection. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
- ^ Frater, Alexander, "Nearer to heaven: This is Ladakh in northern India...", The Guardian, 31 July 1994
- ^ "Exhibitions at The Photographers' Gallery 1971 – Present". The Photographers' Gallery. Archived from the original (DOC) on 3 June 2016. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
- ^ a b "Country Matters", James Hyman Gallery. Archived by the Wayback Machine on 14 July 2014.
- ISBN 978-0-224-05129-3)
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link - ^ Savage, Jon (2015). 1966: The year the decade exploded. London: Faber & Faber
- ^ See: Victoria and Albert Museum collections website
- ^ Wullschläger, Jackie (29 June 2021). "Fifty years of the Photographers' Gallery — the art form's greatest hits". Financial Times. Retrieved 23 September 2021.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 23 September 2021.
- ^ a b "Proud". Archived from the original on 27 September 2018. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
- ^ 'His exhibition, A Life with the Royal Ballet, which opened this week in London, documents some of his very finest work, dating from the 1950s onward. It focuses on the world he had left behind, not front of house so much as the goings-on backstage: namely, the endless rehearsals necessary for balletic perfection, and the make-up routines.' Duerden, N. (31 January 2015). 'The secret life of the ballet'. The Independent
- ^ Coomes, Phil (9 May 2016). "British life through the eyes of Colin Jones". BBC News. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
- ^ "Backstage at the Ballet".
- ^ "1960s Ballet by Colin Jones".
- ^ "Country Matters". James Hyman Gallery. Archived from the original on 26 April 2016. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
- ^ "Group Show Jerusalem". James Hyman Gallery. Retrieved 24 May 2016.
- ^ "Stars of the East". britart gallery. Archived from the original on 26 December 2002.
- ^ "Colin Jones – National Portrait Gallery". www.npg.org.uk. Retrieved 30 September 2021.
External links
- "Colin Jones is one of the most celebrated and prolific photographers of post-war Britain". Archived from the original on 27 September 2021.
- Graft and Grace: the legacy of Colin Jones, 1936-2021