Allen Jones is a well-known British sculptor, lithographer, and arts educator. In 1963, he obtained one of the most prestigious awards in the field of painting, the Prix des Jeunes Artistes, as well as the title of senior Academician at the famous Royal Academy of Arts. His reputation grew in the early 1960s as a result of his pop art-influenced designs, and his work has since been displayed and praised in many countries across the world in both solo and group exhibitions. Apart from creating art for his own enjoyment, he has worked as a production designer on a number of films and television shows, including ‘Oh Calcutta!,’ ‘Manner Win Kommen,’ and ‘Understanding Opera.’ Allen’s reputation as an artist is unrivaled, and he has earned a rightful place among the world’s greatest living painters. He has taught art at Croydon College of Work, Chelsea School of Art, and universities in Berlin, Los Angeles, and France, in addition to creating art.
Childhood and Adolescence
Allen Jones was born on September 1, 1937, in Southampton, England, to a factory worker father and a housewife mother. He spent the majority of his childhood in west London and received all of his education there. He had an interest in art since he was a child, and he spent most of his leisure time making clay sculptures.
He enrolled in London’s Hornsey College of Arts to study lithography. He describes it as a life-changing experience that molded him into a true artist and presented him to some of the top artists in the world. He went to France as part of his studies and was particularly taken with Robert Delaunay.
Allen wanted to do something new, so he created his own style of art, which got him kicked out of the Royal College of Art in his first year.
He was found guilty of attempting to persuade his fellow students to reject the prevailing conventions in the college’s teaching method and build their own style of portraying their art.
The Career of Alan
Allen Jones’ expulsion from the Royal College of Art had no effect on him, and his work was featured in the Emerging Contemporaries 1961 exhibition in London 1961, which aimed to encourage young talent.
That was the era when pop art was developing its own vocabulary among current artists, and many artists, including Allen, appropriated it.
One of his early pieces contained buses from London, which he painted on oddly shaped canvases. Allen’s work was shown in a London West End gallery, and he gained considerable acclaim for his unique style and point of view on art.
The gallery proprietors recognized Allen’s enormous skill and connected him to American painters such as Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg. Allen taught at Croydon College of Arts from 1961 to 1963, and he was awarded the ‘Prix des Jeunes Artistes’ in 1963.
As a result of his exposure to American pop art, he relocated to New York City, where he spent most of his time wandering the city and visiting various art galleries in order to have a better grasp of the explicit artworks created by American painters in the 1930s and 1940s.
His sensual painting ‘Perfect Match’ was a result of this newfound understanding of art, and it landed him a spot in Zurich’s ‘The art collection’ exhibition series, where he was able to rub shoulders with some of the most well-known artists of the period.
For a period, he gave lectures at the University of Florida, and in 1968, he made his first step into structure art’ with a piece called ‘Life Class.’
In 1969, he returned to London and finished his next work, ‘Chair,’ which featured sensuality and sadomasochist elements.
He finished and showed his first collection of sexual fiberglass constructions, which included a hatstand, table, and chair, and these works established him as a well-known name among the English artist world.
However, his work was not without criticism, and when the table, chair, and hatstand were displayed at the Institute of Contemporary Art, they drew a lot of flak due to their overt nature. Filmmaker Roman Polanski, on the other hand, was untouched by the incident and appreciated Allen’s art, owning several of his sculptures.
Allen was also a major fan of Stanley Kubrick, who featured several of his sculptures in his 1971 film ‘A Clockwork Orange.’
This newfound respect from filmmakers landed him a role in the 1975 film ‘Maitresse,’ which sparked controversy owing to the obscene presentation of Allen’s sculptures. On a conventional canvas, he painted a picture named ‘Santa Monica Shores’ in 1977.
He was teaching art at the University of California at the time, and he also served as a guest professor at the Banff Centre School of Fine Arts in Alberta, Canada.
He had one of the largest shows of his art in Liverpool’s Walker Art Gallery in 1979, and the same exhibition was later moved to London’s Serpentine Gallery.
He was a guest speaker at Berlin University in the early 1980s, and his work was shown in Vienna in 1986 by artists such as Brian Eno and Tony Cragg. The year didn’t finish there, for the Royal Academy eventually named him a Royal Academician.
Jones has increased in prominence in recent years as a result of his abstract steel sculptures; various exhibitions have included his steel artworks, and he has received a lot of praise.
Allen received a doctorate of arts degree from Southampton Solent University in 2007, and his paintings and sculptures continued to travel from exhibition to exhibition in the United States and Europe.
In 2009, he was given a watercolor room at the Royal Academy, and the academy further honored him by hosting a three-month ‘Retrospective on Jones’ series in late 2014 and early 2015.
His Personal Experiences
Allen Jones has publicly declared that he is a feminist, and despite the harsh criticism he has gotten, he claims that his work is dedicated to them.
Allen Jones lives and works in the English county of Oxfordshire.
Estimated Net worth
Alan Jones is a radio host with a $10 million net worth.