Glyn Owen Jones (1906-1984) "Athens (The Acropolis from the Pnyx)”

Code: 10376

Dimensions:

Glyn Owen Jones (1906-1984)
"The Acropolis, Athens (seen from the Pnyx)", 1926
Signed "GLYN JONES" Lower Right
Oil on Canvas
34 cm x 46.6 cm

Exhibited:
Fine Art Society, "An Exhibition of Greek Landscapes by Glyn Jones (Prix de Rome 1926)", June-July 1931.

Provenance:
Fine Art Society
Private Collection UK

Glyn Owen Jones was born in Manor Park, Essex.  He studied at the Slade School of Art under Henry Tonks and Philip Wilson Steer from 1923-1926. He won the prestigous Rome Scholarship for Painting in 1926 and went on to study at the British School in Rome, where he worked alongside Rex Whistler. Whilst in Italy he travelled widely around the Mediterranean, particularly to Greece.

The view here is of Athens as seen from the West, from the summit of the Pnyx (one of the earliest and most important sites in the creation of Athenian democracy). The ancient hilltop citadel of the Acropolis, dotted with cypress trees, is the central feature of the painting. At its summit can be seen the distinctive range of buildings: the profiles of the Erechtheion, Parthenon, Propylaea and Temple of Athena Nike, silhouetted against the distant Mount Hymettus. Seemingly painted en plein air on a hot afternoon, Jones has captured the shimmering sunlight of Attica. Another work by Jones from this period, painted on the Greek island of Mykonos in in the Aegean Sea, is held by Cyfarthfa Castle Museum & Art Gallery, Merthyr Tydfil.

Jones returned to England in 1928 to complete a commission to paint a reredos at Canterbury Cathedral. In the 1930's he ran the Spectrum Gallery along with the sculptor Marjorie Meggitt (1906–1970), who he married in 1937. During WWII he was commissioned into the Army and worked as a Censor and interpreter with Italian prisoners of war. He worked on a number of mural schemes before and after the war.

Glyn O. Jones exhibited work at the R.A., The Leicester Galleries and The Fine Art Society. Solo exhibitions included The Fine Art Society (1931) and The Twenty One Gallery (1932). His collectors and patrons included Lord d'Abernon, Lord Howard de Walden and Sir Joseph Duveen. A fine portraitist, he had various distinguished sitters, including the Prime Minister Harold Wilson (The Lord Wilson of Rievaulx (1916-1995)). Much of his work remains in private collections.