Welsh Journals

THOMAS JONES A BICENTENARY YEAR OF CELEBRATION Ann Sumner The celebrations to commemorate the life and artistic career of the eighteenth-century Welsh landscape painter Thomas Jones (1742- 1803) (see p. vi) began with an evening service of thanksgiving for his life, held in the Caebach Chapel on 28 April 2003. This was conducted by Revd MJ Cruchley of the United Reformed Church, with an address by the President of the Radnorshire Society, Revd RWD Fenn. It was a moving service and a fine way to launch the celebrations, which would, by the close of 2003, bring the art of Thomas Jones to a much wider audience. The service reminded us not only of his success as an artist but also of his family ties, his mother's deeply religious background and his pride in his native Radnorshire. He eventually of course became High Sheriff of the County and ended his days as the comfortable squire of Pencerrig. At the National Museums & Galleries of Wales, plans to celebrate Jones's bicentenary with a major loan exhibition and the publication of a significant academic catalogue had been in hand for three years. A London-based Exhibition Committee of academics and enthusiasts met regularly at the Paul Mellon Centre for British Art from late 2000 until April 2003, helping to trace and locate as many works by Jones as possi- ble. In addition, an exhibition researcher, Greg Smith was appointed and together we began to assemble a list of possible loans. We teamed up with Christopher Riopelle of the National Gallery in Lon- don and Charles Nugent of the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, repre- sentatives of the two institutions where the exhibition would travel, after its showing in Cardiff. We were particularly assisted by a couple of volumes of photographs of Jones's work, which had been assembled by Mrs Jane Evan Thomas and which were made available by Joy Ashton. Thus we traced many works and found enthusiastic owners willing to lend and delighted at our interest in the artist. Kate Lowry, Senior Conservation Officer at the National Museum & Gallery began technical research on some works, which the owners kindly allowed us to bring in early for examination in the studio. Many works had not previously been published and gradually a new picture of Jones, as an artist, began to emerge. I was determined to see his entire career in perspective with a focus, of course, on his Ital- ian oil sketches on which his current reputation is based, but clearly with emphasis as well on his early subject painting and his response to his na-