Charles Jones: Selected Photographs

The gallery is pleased to show a selection of rare vintage photographs by Charles Jones (1866-1959), an English gardener whose sensitively composed images of vegetables, fruits and flowers have been widely championed since they were discovered at a London antiques market in 1981.  While the horticultural expertise Jones brought to his work as the gardener at Ote Hall in Sussex has been traced to a 1905 professional publication, his remarkable achievement as an early photographer went unrecognized during his lifetime, and remains quite mysterious today.  What is clear is that the meticulous attention he devoted to capturing the beauty of produce and flowering plants with his camera was matched by the care he devoted to their cultivation.  

Printed from glass plate negatives, Jones' gold-toned gelatin silver prints represent an unusually modern sensibility that contrasts with the prevailing approach to botanical subjects by his contemporaries. The nine tightly composed photographs on view range from a cluster of heirloom beans, to a single onion enveloped in light, to a platter of potatoes. A pair of extraordinary parrot tulips is one of three iconic floral subjects.