Allen Jones.. Artist 🖌️

[Joe 90]

Allen Jones RA (born 1 September 1937) is a British pop artist best known for his paintings, sculptures, and lithography. His best known work Hatstand, Table and Chair, involving fibreglass "fetish" mannequins, debuted to protests in 1970.

Though the use of mannequins or mannequin type sculptures among Surrealist artists such as Salvador Dali was popular since 1910. His work caused quite an outrage during the Pop Art era.

[Joe 90]

He was part of a unique generation of students at the Royal College. London.

Jones designed Barbet Schroeder's 1975 film Maîtresse. Starring Bulle Ogier as the professional dominatrix Ariane and Gérard Depardieu as her obsessed lover.

The film was refused a certificate in the United Kingdom because of its graphic depictions of sado-masochism.

[Joe 90]

Jones was expelled from the Royal College of Art in 1960, at the end of his first year.

Jones first group of erotic fibreglass sculptures, of a Hatstand, Table and Chair gained international attention when exhibited in 1970. The works were met with strong protests for perceived misogyny, which succeeded in making Jones a "cultural hot potato".

Laura Mulvey writing for Spare Rib magazine suggested the sculptures was inspired by latent castration anxiety. Almost a decade later, when they were put on display at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 1978, they were attacked with stink bombs.

Eight years later, on International Women's Day, 'Chair' was damaged by paint stripper while exhibited at the Tate.

According to art historian and curator, Marco Livingstone, writing in 2004: "More than three decades later, these works still carry a powerful emotive charge, ensnaring every viewer's psychology and sexual outlook regardless of age, gender or experience."

[setevoltas]

I love learning about these kinds of things, an interesting side of the culture for sure. Thanks for the history lesson Joe90!

[Joe 90]

Intrigued by American pop art, Jones moved to Manhattan in 1964. he became fascinated by sexual imagery popular in the illustrations of the 1940s and 1950s."

This is an interest I also share, retro pin ups and the BDSM art of Irving Klaw.

The eroticism of corsets, stockings, suspenders, extreme high heels, fetish wear and latex.

[Joe 90]

Jones "worked on a three-dimensional illusionism with obvious erotic components.

Roman Polanski, Elton John and Gunter Sachs all owned a piece at one stage, with one of the sets selling at auction in 2012 for £2.6 million. The sculptures have also been referenced in Stanley Kubrick's 1971 film A Clockwork Orange.

[Joe 90]

Jones' sculptures are reminiscent of the fetish photography of Irving Klaw. You may know of him through his work with the infamous Pin Up model Bettie Page.

[Joe 90]

Fetish art was quite controversial at the time. Even though Wonder Woman was originally an erotic concept. A Pin Up.

The severe reaction from the art world, feminists, and the mainstream press after the his sculptures' debut would limit Jones' exhibition career in England over the next several decades.

When asked about their effect on his career, Jones was quoted stating "it's collateral damage. I wanted to offend the canons of accepted worth in art. I found the perfect image to do that, and it's an accident of history that these works coincided with the arrival of militant feminism."

[Joe 90]

Jones represented "the secret face of British male desire in the gloomy post-war years."

Jones is known for incorporating erotic imagery into his works, including rubber fetishism and BDSM, and this sexuality has often been a focus of both art critics and the press.

[Joe 90]

Jones' subjects have included musicians, dancers and London buses, but in the popular perception his name is irrevocably linked to his peerlessly kinky fetish women.

Whether they be in two or three dimensions, with their polished surfaces and blank expressions they remain images that are iconic British pop art.

And that concludes my my thread on the artist Allen Jones.

[Joe 90]

I love learning about these kinds of things, an interesting side of the culture for sure. Thanks for the history lesson Joe90!

Thank you Setevoltas Be sure to visit again, I hadn't fully loaded the images and the biography of this mini thread. All visitors please note that I have 3 historical threads in this section for you to enjoy.

[Joe 90]

For easier reading and scrolling for this thread it is better to use a mobile phone or an android tablet as this site is now optimised for this.

Posts are easier to read vertically.