Charles Jones: Early 20th-Century Photographs

From August 30 through September 30, 2018, The Drawing Room in East Hampton is pleased to present an exhibition of rare vintage photographs by Charles Jones (British, 1866-1959). A separate press release is available for the concurrent exhibition, "Fiona Waterstreet: Sculpture."

Charles Jones was an English gardener, whose sensitively composed and sharply detailed photographs of vegetables, fruits and flowers have been widely championed since they were discovered in 1981 at a London antiques market. The son of a master butcher, Jones trained as a gardener and began tending to the fruit trees and walled kitchen garden at Ote Hall in West Sussex in the 1890s. Over the next decade, while mastering his professional horticultural skills, Jones began to experiment with large format photography. Although his accomplishments as a gardener were noted in a professional publication in 1905, his remarkable proto-Modernist photographs seem to have gone unrecognized during his lifetime.

This exhibition assembles more than twenty tightly composed photographs of subjects that include clusters of peas and bean pods, cabbage heads, potatoes and a single onion enveloped in light. Three photographs of different pears reveal nuances in shape and surface, and his cropped view of a single zinnia is among the iconic floral still lifes. Throughout this engaging body of work, Jones’ interest in capturing the distinctive qualities of each specimen is apparent in the formal presentation and subtle lighting he utilized.

See below for full press release.