REVIEW
"Cwmbran Exhibition" by Bryn Richards
The tragic accident which, last year, cut short the life of Colin Jones, robbed
Wales of a man whose influence on the development of Welsh art, both as
administrator and painter, was powerful and expanding. His outlook was not
narrowly regional; more than many painters he was aware of art as an
international language and his knowledge and love of the cultures of other
times and places were a constant source of inspiration. There is, none the
less, a strong Welsh flavour about his work, particularly evident in the
paintings, which shows his kinship with a number of men whose work is well
known in Wales, notably Will Roberts, Josef Herman, Thomas Rathmell.
This exhibition at Llantarnam Grange, Cwmbran, is sponsored by the South Wales
Group. The drawings show that acute and sensitive observation of fact was the
basis of Jones's art; their directness and spontaneity is the result of a
rigorous elimination of unnecessary detail, and a concentration on formal and
structural essentials. This is clearly seen in the drawings of trees, buildings
and plants made in France in August of last year. Jones's concern for formal
clarity can be seen in all his work, not only for its own sake but more in the
interest of the precise expression of the human significance of the subject.
The paintings fall into two groups: those in which drawing and painting fuse in
the service of an analysis of form and character, such as the portrait of
"Paul"; and those which are heavier in technique and more Expressionist in
feeling such as "Pit-Head Funeral" and "Seated Figure." I saw little indication
that Colin Jones was moving towards any synthesis of these coexistent styles
except, perhaps, in the very dignified and moving portrait of Father Caesar
which must have been among the last works he painted.
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