Allen Jones

Allen Jones was born in 1937 in Southampton, England. He studied painting and lithography at Hornsey College of Art, London, from 1955 to 1959 before enrolling at the Royal College of Art, where his fellow students included Peter Phillips, David Hockney and R.B. Kitaj. Jones and his contemporaries became instrumental in the birth of British Pop Art.

Jones is best known for his sculptures, paintings and prints incorporating female figures. His sexually charged early works, with their provocative eroticism, have, over the years, given way to more stylised, lyrical compositions often involving elements of performance such as fashion shows, dancing and cabaret. As a printmaker, working mostly in lithograph and screenprint, Jones has built up an impressive body of work and the first retrospective of his graphic work was held at the Barbican Art Gallery, London in 1995.

Aside from the numerous pop art surveys in which his work is always a central component, Jones has had solo exhibitions at Royal Academy of Arts, London (2014, 2007); Kunsthalle Tübingen, Germany (2012); Kunsthalle, Villa Kobe, Halle/Saale (2002); Kunsthaus, Hannover (2001) and Skulpturen-Garten der Stadt Wien, Vienna (1999). Dedicated room displays have been presented at Tate Britain, London (2007) and the Royal Academy of Arts, London (2002). In 1979 a touring retrospective opened at Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool and toured to Serpentine Gallery, London; Sunderland Museum and Art Gallery;  Staatliche Kunsthalle, Baden-Baden and Kunsthalle, Bielefeld.

 In 1963 Jones received the Prix des Jeunes Artistes at the Paris Biennale, and in 1986 he was elected to the Royal Academy of Arts. From 1990 - 99 he was a trustee of the British Museum, London.

His work is held by numerous museum collections including the British Museum, London; Tate, London; National Portrait Gallery, London; Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Chicago Museum of Art; Fogg Art Museum, Massachusetts; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C.; Vancouver Art Gallery and Nagaoka Museum, Japan.

Allen Jones lives and works in London.