David Jones (1895–1974)
the Stanley and Jacqueline Honeyman bequest
Past exhibition
5 June – 17 September 2023
Room 90a
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This display celebrated a bequest of six drawings by David Jones, an artist and poet with a deep and enduring interest in mythology, theology and the cultural history of Britain.
Bequeathed to the British Museum by Stanley and Jacqueline Honeyman, friends and long-term supporters of the artist, the drawings date from 1928 to the 1950s and significantly strengthen the Museum's collection of prints and drawings by Jones, which was previously limited to his pre-1930 output. A shy, somewhat chaotic, but charming and humorous man, Jones attracted many loyal friends, including the Honeymans, who purchased many of his works over the years.
Jones began to make wood engravings in the 1920s while living and working with the Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic, a Roman Catholic community of artists and craftspeople founded by Eric Gill in Ditchling, Sussex. In around 1930, however, eye problems forced him to give up the intricate work of engraving and he started to produce large-scale watercolours of mythical scenes, figures, seascapes, trees and still-lifes infused with allusions and metaphor.
The display included two study drawings for a set of engravings that Jones made to illustrate The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge – a favourite poem of his – as well as a charming graphite and watercolour depiction of an elephant and three large-scale watercolours made in Harrow in the late 1940s – early 1950s.
