David Jones (poet) - Biography

Biography

Walter David Michael Jones, later known solely as David, was born on 1 November 1895 in Arabin Road, Brockley, Kent, now a suburb of South East London, and later lived in nearby Howson Road. His father, James Jones, had been born in Flintshire in north Wales, to a Welsh-speaking family and was discouraged from speaking Welsh by his father, who, in common with many Welsh-speaking parents of the time, believed that habitual use of the language might hold his child back in his career. James Jones had moved to London to work as a printer's overseer for the Christian Herald Press, and it was here that he had met his wife, Alice, a Londoner born and bred. They had three children: Harold (who died in his late teens of tuberculosis), Alice, and David.

Jones exhibited artistic promise at an early age, even entering his drawings into exhibitions of children's artwork. He wrote that from the age of six he knew that he would devote his life to art. In 1909, at fourteen, he persuaded his parents to allow him to abandon traditional education for art school and entered the Camberwell Art School. There he studied under A. S. Hartrick, who had worked with Van Gogh and Gauguin, Reginald Savage and Herbert Cole, and who introduced him to the work of the Impressionists and Pre-Raphaelites.

With the outbreak of the First World War, Jones enlisted with the Royal Welch Fusiliers and served on the Western Front from 1915 to 1918. His experiences in the trenches were to prove important in his later painting and poetry, especially his involvement in the fight at Mametz Wood.

In 1919 he won a Government grant to study in London at the Westminster School of Art under Walter Bayes and Bernard Meninsky.

In 1921 he became a Roman Catholic. In 1922 he joined Eric Gill's Guild of St Joseph and St Dominic at Ditchling, Sussex. In 1923 he first worked as an illustrator, on In Petra by Gill and H. Pepler. He returned to London in 1924, but in 1925 joined Gill at Capel-y-ffin, and in the same year did illustrations for Gulliver's Travels for the Golden Cockerel Press.

In 1927 Jones returned to live with his parents at Brockley, and also spent time on the coast at Portslade near Hove. That year he exhibited seascapes and drawings of Wales at the St George's gallery. He also joined the Society of Wood Engravers.

In 1929 he exhibited at the Goupil gallery, including watercolor landscapes of France. From 1928 to 1935 he was a member of the Seven and Five Society.

His works were shown at Chicago in 1933, the Venice Biennale in 1934 and the World's Fair, New York, in 1939. In 1937 he published his long narrative, In Parenthesis.

In 1944 an exhibition of his work toured Britain.

In 1952 he published The Anathemata.

In 1954 an Arts Council exhibition of his work toured Britain, visiting Aberystwyth, Cardiff, Swansea, Edinburgh and London (Tate Gallery).

He died in Harrow, Middlesex in 1974. His grave can be found in Brockley and Ladywell Cemeteries, Lewisham, SE13, near Brockley.