David Jones - Three Kings

Matthew 2: 1–2, 11

The woodblock was made for a Christmas card while Jones was living at the Capel-y-ffin community created by Eric Gill in the Black Mountains of Wales. The local hills feature prominently and below them lies Bethlehem (the name of a hamlet in Carmarthenshire) illuminated by the rays of the star. The three kings are on foot with their heads slightly bowed, while near them is a mutilated tree. David Alston has suggested that this tree both foreshadows the Crucifixion and reflects Jones’ experience in the battlefields of the First World War.  The words, inscribed in reverse, ‘Omnes de Saba Venient’ are known from early Epiphany carols and come from the prophecy of Isaiah (Chapter 60:6): ‘All shall come from Sheba bringing gold and frankincense, and showing forth praise to the Lord’.

Commentary based on A Guide to the Methodist Art Collection.

Born: Brockley, Kent, UK, 1895

Died: Harrow, Middlesex, UK, 1974

Early life and education

David Jones’ father was from North Wales but moved to London to work as a printer. Jones studied at Camberwell School of Art from 1909 to 1915. He served with the Royal Welch Fusiliers on the Western Front from 1915 through to 1918.  After World War I, he studied at Westminster School of Art from 1919 to 1922.

Life and career

In 1921, Jones was received into the Roman Catholic Church. In that same year, he met Eric Gill and joined Gill’s community, first at Ditchling, Sussex, and then at Capel-y-ffin in the Black Mountains. He became a member of Gill’s Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic in 1922. Jones was engaged to Gill’s daughter Petra. Gill and another member of the Guild, Philip Hagreen, are also represented in the Methodist Modern Art Collection.

The recent exhibition at Y Gaer Hill-rhythms: David Jones and Capel-y-ffin explores the profound effects of his time spent at Capel-y-ffin on his artistic development. He wrote: “My subsequent work can, I think, be truthfully said to hinge on that period.”

Jones’ wood engravings were highly regarded but in later life he preferred to produce work in a unique mixture of pencil and watercolour, making works of dense symbolism. These drew on the themes of the war, Welsh myth and landscape, his Roman Catholic faith, poetry, and legend. He also developed a form of calligraphy which he termed “pain inscriptions.”

Jones is also well-known for his writing, in particular his 1937 prose poem In Parenthesis, which draws on his World War I experiences, and an epic work The Anathemata of 1952. He was described as a genius by, among others, TS Eliot and Igor Stravinsky. He also wrote essays including Art and Sacrament (1959) which explores the meaning of signs and symbols in everyday life and relates them to Roman Catholic teachings. He argued that the unique ability of human beings to make works of art is a God-like quality.

Richard Harries says that Jones “was an anguished, complex person who wrestled more seriously than any other, in theory, poetry and painting, with what he perceived as the fundamental challenge facing artists in our time,” and who “remains of huge significance not just for his talent, but for the integrity, courage and persistence with which he faced it, and the insights which resulted from this.”

In later years he lived first in Sidmouth, Devon and then, after a major breakdown in 1947, in Harrow. He ended his life in the Calvary Nursing Home, Sudbury Hill, Harrow, where he was looked after by nuns.

Jones’ first solo show was in St George’s Gallery, London, in 1927. He was a member of the Society of Wood Engravers and in 1928 was elected to, and exhibited with, the Seven and Five Society which included Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson and John Piper.

Solo exhibitions include St George’s Gallery, London (1927); and Y Gaer, Brecknock Museum, Art Gallery and Library (2023).

His work is held in the Tate Gallery, London; the Imperial War Museum London; the National Museum and Gallery of Wales, Cardiff; the National Galleries of Scotland; Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery; Y Gaer, Brecknock Museum, Art Gallery and Library; Ditchling Museum; and the Leeds University Collection.

Ariane Bankes and Paul Hills, The Art of David Jones: Vision and Memory, (London, Lund Humphries, 2015)

David Buckman, Artists in Britain Since 1945: Volume 1 A to L. Vol. 1 of 2 volumes, (Bristol, Art Dictionaries Ltd, 2006), p. 842. The text is also available on the Art UK website: https://artuk.org/discover/artists/jones-david-18951974/search/2024--keyword:david-jones--referrer:global-search-412629/page/1/view_as/grid (viewed 18 September 2024)

Richard Harries, The Image of Christ in Modern Art, (London and New York, Routledge, 2016), p. 63-73

Peter Levi, ‘Jones, (Walter) David Michael [pseud. Dai Greatcoat] (1895–1974),’ Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2009). The text is also available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/31294 (viewed 18 September 2024)

Seeing the Spiritual: A Guide to the Methodist Modern Art Collection, (Oxford, Methodist Modern Art Collection, 2018), p. 70-71

Frances Spalding, British Art Since 1900, (London, Thames & Hudson, 1986), p. 77-80

Peter Wakelin, Hill-rhythms: David Jones + Capel-y-ffin, (Brecknock, The Brecknock Art Trust and Grey Mare Press, 2023). ISBN: 9781999647469