Tess Jaray
Into light
Tess Jaray
25 May–17 June 2017
Tess Jaray Into light
Marlborough Fine Art 6 Albemarle Street London W1S 4BY +44 (0)20 7629 5161 reception@marlboroughfineart.com www.marlboroughlondon.com
Tess Jaray and John Stezaker Excerpts from a conversation
JS You recently completed a commission for a new building in King’s Cross, a vast multipanel painting titled Aleppo. It made me think of Robert Moskowitz's huge world trade centre towers that he made long before the 9/11 attacks. Moskowitz was oblivious to what was going to happen. Was your Aleppo made in the light of recent events in Syria? It seems to me that the works inspired by Aleppo are strangely dark and ominously monumental - giant shadows, yet at the same time your subtle colour combinations seem filled with light. This duality makes me think of the paintings Barnett Newman did after his stroke, the predominantly black and white Stations of the Cross [1958-1966]. There seems to be a similar relationship between your interest in abstraction and his, though the effects are usually quite opposite. As Milan Kundera describes the weightiness of Beethoven's sonatas stored in the cellar and the lightness of Mozart flying free of the gravitational pull of the real, so I think of you on the side of lightness and Newman on the side of weight. This recent series of yours though brings you the closest to Newman’s dark phase of his work. I don't know if there is a question in there beyond the one about Aleppo, but it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on Newman and whether you had ever come across the work of Bob Moskowitz? Newman and Moskowitz share with you a desire to free formal elements yet at the same time to somehow anchor this freedom in the real world. TJ
Aleppo Dark and Light, 2016 Acrilyc on panel
It took me some time to understand what I was doing with the Aleppo series of paintings, and the King’s Cross painting in particular. So many strands of my interests seem to have come together in these works that it would take quite some time to unpick this. It all goes back to when I visited Syria, and Aleppo in particular, some eight years ago, before the current war and all the destruction began. I fell in love with the country, with its desert landscape, its people, architecture, souks, the sound of the language, and in Aleppo – though also in Damascus - particularly the mosques. Many of these mosques were built with a distinctive lintel above the main entrance, made of alternating, carved stripes of a very dark basalt and a light, almost pale pink sandstone, that seemed a very particular, and very enchanting, feature of the city. Artists, we are told, are emotional materialists, and I think that to some extent that is true. We want to make not only a mark on the world, but take some of the world for our own. I wanted to keep something of those lintels, and took them back with me, in my mind, to my studio.
“The force of what was happening in Aleppo, to this place I had actually been to, and marveled at, was too great to ignore”
Had I imagined the horrors that were to come, I would of course have photographed and recorded them properly. I later discovered – too late – that there only exist very few good photographs of Aleppo. I spoke to the author Philip Mansel, who has recently published a fascinating book on the place, and he told me it had never really been adequately photographed. So I had these thoughts at the back of my mind, but nothing was fully resolved yet. I can never work from anything in particular, the original impulse has somehow to be distilled and married to other concerns, the usual - scale, size, tensions, surface, colour and light of course, so by the time a painting is resolved the original inspiration has been absorbed by other needs and may no longer be in clear evidence, like a palimpsest. The paintings may be seen as abstract - whatever that may be - but they are never abstracted. When the war started, I along with everyone else watched with horror as that great ancient city started to be destroyed. Watching it on the news on television or on line, it was hard to understand that such beauty and civilization could vanish like that, together with its citizens, and I still cannot comprehend it. This was when the idea of the paintings finally took hold. My painting has never been political, in fact apart from the great monumental works such as those of Goya or Picasso, I have been uncertain about much political art, believing, perhaps wrongly, that it doesn’t really benefit anyone, least of all in a practical sense. But with the catastrophe in Aleppo I started to see things differently. The paintings I was working on then took on a very different aspect in my mind. The subject of Dark and Light (in itself verging on the banal) now seemed to refer not only to the place and the stone, but carried a strong metaphor, as indeed painting always does. For me this is not something that should be writ large, but should be almost latent, that connects the visual with the heart. I am not at all certain how much control one has over these motivations to make art. I certainly don’t believe that temporary moods affect what happens in the studio. But the force of what was happening in Aleppo, to this place I had actually been to, and marveled at, was too great to ignore, and pushed its way to the surface. Even though I know it makes not the slightest difference to the political facts, I needed to lament, in my own way, the destruction of Aleppo.
JS Returning to the question about Barnett Newman, I think there is a similarity between your interest in abstraction and his, though the effects are obviously quite opposite. TJ
There is some truth in that, though his work is abstract in a particular American way, which I believe mine is not. I think my roots go back to Malevich, therefore are essentially European. I am one of the few artists left who can remember the first time we saw Newman’s work, at the Tate in 1959, where we were all astounded as well as profoundly affected. When I saw his work again last year in the Royal Academy’s Abstract Expressionism show I was really quite shocked by his massive, monumental painting Ulysses [1952], with its soaring height and two stripes of blues. I didn’t know whether to be inspired or frightened, and I certainly brooded over the similarity with what I had recently attempted at King’s Cross, trying to suggest a soaring height – in all senses – through proportion as well as scale. It was not so much the formal similarities that worried me, after all nobody can claim these their own (the way one cannot claim language one’s own), but the similarities of implication and ambition. The question of how to use formal elements - a sort of lingua franca of abstract painting - and make them one’s own has always been of central interest to me. My own uses of formal elements started in 1960, when I first travelled to Italy on a scholarship. I was completely bowled over by the great spaces of the early Renaissance buildings that I saw, the architecture of Brunelleschi in particular. When I returned to England I attempted, if not to replicate this, which of course can’t be done, then at least to find a way of creating pictorial space that in some way evokes comparable, parallel responses, as much as such a thing is possible in painting. I didn’t really aim to ‘free’ those formal elements, but rather to use them to create this quality of space I was trying for. And suspect that is still part of what I am doing, never having quite recovered from my love of those places.
JS I would like to return to the question of differences between American and English non-representational painting in the 1960s. To my mind English painting has an ambiguous and dialectical approach to abstraction. There is always a tendency to make formal analogies with the experience of the world. American abstraction by contrast I think of as unitary and monolithic. The best non representational art in this country is much more ambiguous and less committed to aesthetic autonomy as an ideal than the American counterparts. I know that British art fell under the spell of American art in the 60s, but I also feel that the best represents a very different attitude to formal qualities, one which chimes with more recent international approaches to nonrepresentational painting. What do you think? TJ
You are talking about so many important and interesting things here that it’s not possible to address them on all at once. So I will separate them out and try to answer what I can. Sooner or later, I suspect, there will be a serious look at the differences between American and English non-representational painting in the 50’s and 60’s. There was something so forceful about American painting at that time in that it achieved a clarity that European art could not match. Its unambiguity and confidence held great appeal, especially for Europeans who were caught up in the complexities of post-war culture, political and economic battles. The American scene was very focused – on New York mainly - and there was a relatively small number of artists, curators and critics who dominated the discourse, against a benign political and economic backdrop. In Europe there were many tremendously interesting artists but their backgrounds, ideological bend and extremely diverse goals made it impossible to summarize in any meaningful way. Yet however powerful the impact of the American painting was, the link between English and European art was probably stronger, though I suspect many would disagree. Picasso was still casting a shadow, and if it is to be seen as confrontation – which the American work by its nature seems to suggest – I would probably hedge my bets as to where the greater strength and influence lies. Only time will tell.
JS You recently talked about your interest in pre-historic art, early Egyptian and Sumerian art, and how the unknowability and mystery of these early forms allow for a non-linguistic appreciation. Can you elaborate on this? TJ
This really goes to the heart of what obsesses me but it is a subject that is very hard to talk about. There are some things that are particularly difficult to speak about, almost as though by bringing them to light will make them disappear or lose meaning. I am reluctant to describe these things, because it can’t really be done with words. What I am talking about is meaning outside the realm of language. With words we expects some kind of logic, narrative or order, some way of understanding or enlightening. Painting is of course the supreme way of wordless expression. It has much to do with what I am referring to: the primal, the primitive, those shapes and forms and uses, the origins of which are lost in the mists of time. There is a geometry somehow embedded in those forms, as though our ancestors believed that the meaning of their existence was somehow represented that way. I am not, of course, talking about Euclidean geometry, of which I understand nothing, but more about what I see as the geometry of human relationships. How we can measure that in different ways: by how we sit together, pass each other in the street, line up in opposition, and so on. You only have to look at any group of people sitting together to see evidence of this. So if you paint a square next to another square, this is the way we read those relationships, in a kind of shorthand, without of course being aware of doing it. If we were aware we would go mad fairly soon. My own use of geometry is quite different, nothing to do with rules but rather an obscure sense of logic. There are many artists who are attempting, in different ways, to deal with this search for origins. Picasso of course was endlessly looking for it, just think of the monolithic aspects of the Demoiselle d’Avignon [1907]. The origin of this geometry, whether it’s in evidence or not, seems to me to be the Holy Grail of painting.
“I believe that painting is far more difficult to see than other forms of art, you have to make a real effort, there isn’t the immediate comfort of familiarity that there is with words, or music”
JS Having lived with two paintings of yours for some years now, I feel both the presence of real matter in the monochrome ground and of a disquieting sense of absence. I wonder if there is something uniquely British in this ambiguous and dialectical approach to abstraction. TJ
Not being a philosopher and not wanting to get bogged down in indecipherable theories abstractions, and most certainly not in mysticism, I find it very hard to find an answer to your comment on ‘absence’. I very much hope that it means more than emptiness or vacuity. What does it actually mean? Absence of something? If so of what? It’s such a pity that the use of the word beyond in art has become totally worn out and clichéd. Because it implies that there is more there than the eye can grasp, that behind the surface lies something hidden and unavailable. And desirable. Presumably this is an inbuilt need in all of us – thus the invention of religion. Perhaps Malevich’s Black Square and Red Square [1915] are a good example of this. He was, it seems, a believer in God, if perhaps a secret one, and the so-called spiritual aspect to his work has often been attributed to this. My own view is that the power of his work is more attributable to what I was trying to explain with the reference to geometry. A search for the fundamental, the beginnings of things, as well as a belief in the transcendent.
JS This is what I find so fascinating in your work, the sense of confronting the materiality of pigment whilst at the same time being drawn into the unknowable and the unconscious. TJ
It makes me very happy that you say that, because mostly I simply can’t believe that this ungraspable thing I’m aiming for can ever be seen by others. And it’s not always easy to connect with painting. I believe that painting is far more difficult to see than other forms of art, you have to make a real effort, there isn’t the immediate comfort of familiarity that there is with words, or music, or the presence of real people as with theatre, or the power of film. But pigment and surface quality are supremely important in their ability to draw the gaze. Without surface what would there be? With some works I have tried to eliminate all textural evidence of surface in order to try to release the purity of colour and light. In other words, if there is nothing to distract the eye on the surface then the experience of the colour is at its greatest. Sometimes this works and at other times it doesn’t. So I don’t so much search for the way to ‘release’ the pigment, as recognize it when it happens. Which does involve a great deal of experimentation, trying out what happens with thickness or thinness of paint, on smooth ground, textured ground, varying canvas surfaces, boards etc. Every single time the colour and pigment comes across differently. And then one day something very slightly different happens, with the application of the paint or adding a little more or a little less oil, or a different brush, and maybe a good fairy, and suddenly it’s there. Why it happens in this way will always remain a mystery to me.
L Palace Green, 1962, Oil on canvas R St. Stephens Green, 1963, Oil on canvas
List of works
Aleppo
1 Aleppo Dark and Light, 2016 Paint on panel 156 x 79 cm 64 1 ⁄4 x 31 in 2 Aleppo: The Light Surrounded, 2016 Paint on panel (6 Panels) 194 x 200 cm 76 3⁄8 x 78 3⁄4 in (total) 3 Citadel Light on Light, 2016 Paint on canvas 180 x 125 cm 70 3⁄4 x 49 in 4 Citadel (Dark on Light, Light on Dark), 2016 Paint on canvas (diptych) Each canvas: 180 x 125 cm 70 7⁄8 x 49 1 ⁄4 in 5 Aleppo from The Dark, 2016 Acrilyc on panel (triptych) 156 x 315 cm 61 3⁄8 x 124 1 ⁄8 in (total)
1 Aleppo Dark and Light, 2016 Paint on panel 156 x 79 cm | 64 1 â „4 x 31 in
2 Aleppo: The Light Surrounded, 2016 Paint on panel (6 Panels) 194 x 200 cm | 76 3⁄8 x 78 3⁄4 in (total)
3 Citadel Light on Light, 2016 Paint on canvas 180 x 125 cm | 70 3â „4 x 49 in
4 Citadel (Dark on Light, Light on Dark), 2016 Paint on canvas (diptych) Each canvas: 180 x 125 cm | 70 7⁄8 x 49 1 ⁄4 in
5 Aleppo from The Dark, 2016 Acrilyc on panel (triptych) 156 x 315 cm | 61 3⁄8 x 124 1 ⁄8 in (total)
List of works
Thorns
6 Borromini’s Balustrade Red & Green, 2014 Acrylic on metal panel 24 x 43 cm 9 1 ⁄2 x 16 7⁄8 in 7 Thorns 18, 2014 Acrylic on metal panel 24 x 29 cm 9 1 ⁄2 x 11 3⁄8 in 8 Thorns 1, 2014 Acrylic on metal panel 24 x 29 cm 9 1 ⁄2 x 11 3⁄8 in 9 Thorns 15 ‘Purple on Yellow’, 2014 Acrylic on metal panel 24 x 26 cm 9 1 ⁄2 x 10 1 ⁄4 in 10 Thorns E, 2014 Acrylic on metal panel 21 x 24 cm 8 1 ⁄4 x 9 1 ⁄2 in
11 Thorns 16, 2014 Acrylic on metal panel 29 x 24 cm 11 3⁄8 x 9 1 ⁄2 in 12 Thorns C, 2014 Acrylic on metal panel 43 x 10.5 cm 16 7⁄8 x 4 1 ⁄8 in 13 Thorns 6, 2014 Acrylic on metal panel 21 x 43 cm 8 1 ⁄4 x 16 7⁄8 in 14 Borromini’s Balustrade Mauve & Yellow, 2014 Acrylic on metal panel 24 x 43 cm 9 1 ⁄2 x 16 7⁄8 in
6 Borromini’s Balustrade Red & Green, 2014 Acrylic on metal panel 24 x 43 cm | 9 1 ⁄2 x 16 7⁄8 in
7 Thorns 18, 2014 Acrylic on metal panel 24 x 29 cm | 9 1 ⁄2 x 11 3⁄8 in
8 Thorns 1, 2014 Acrylic on metal panel 24 x 29 cm | 9 1 ⁄2 x 11 3⁄8 in
9 Thorns 15 ‘Purple on Yellow’, 2014 Acrylic on metal panel 24 x 26 cm | 9 1 ⁄2 x 10 1 ⁄4 in
10 Thorns E, 2014 Acrylic on metal panel 21 x 24 cm | 8 1 ⁄4 x 9 1 ⁄2 in
11 Thorns 16, 2014 Acrylic on metal panel 29 x 24 cm | 11 3⁄8 x 9 1 ⁄2 in
12 Thorns C, 2014 Acrylic on metal panel 43 x 10.5 cm | 16 7⁄8 x 4 1 ⁄8 in
13 Thorns 6, 2014 Acrylic on metal panel 21 x 43 cm | 8 1 ⁄4 x 16 7⁄8 in
14 Borromini’s Balustrade Mauve & Yellow, 2014 Acrylic on metal panel 24 x 43 cm | 9 1 ⁄2 x 16 7⁄8 in
List of works
Works on paper
15 Study for ‘Villandry’, 1966 Pencil on paper 24.6 x 25.9 cm 9 3⁄4 x 10 1 ⁄4 in
24 Study for ‘Garden of Anna’, 1966 Pencil on paper 27.5 x 38 cm 10 7⁄8 x 15 in
16 Study for ‘Villandry’, 1966 Pencil on paper 25.7 x 27.1 cm 10 1 ⁄8 x 10 5⁄8 in
25 Study for ‘Versailles’, 1966 Pencil on paper 27.5 x 38 cm 10 7⁄8 x 15 in
17 Study for ‘Versailles’, 1966 Pencil on paper 25.7 x 30.2 cm 10 1 ⁄8 x 11 7⁄8 in
26 Study for ‘Thirty One Steps’, 1985 Pencil on graph paper 21.5 x 21.5 cm 8 1 ⁄2 x 8 1 ⁄2 in
18 Study for ‘Versailles’, 1966 Pencil on paper 23.6 x 28.5 cm 9 1 ⁄4 x 11 1 ⁄4 in
27 Study for ‘Thirty One Steps’, 1985 Pencil on graph paper 20 x 20 cm 7 7⁄8 x 7 7⁄8 in
19 Towards ‘Minaret’ series, 1983 Pencil on graph paper 41.4 x 57.5 cm 16 1 ⁄4 x 22 5⁄8 in
28 Study for ‘North West’, 1986 Pencil on graph paper 41.4 x 57.5 cm 6 1 ⁄4 x 22 5⁄8 in
20 Towards ‘Tower’ series, 1980 Pencil on graph paper 41.9 x 59.3 cm 16 1 ⁄2 x 23 3⁄8 in
29 Study for ‘Red Pyramid’, 1987 Pencil on graph paper 12.5 x 20 cm 4 7⁄8 x 7 7⁄8 in
21 Study for ‘Recollection’, 1986 Pen and ink on graph paper 42 x 59 cm 16 1 ⁄2 x 23 1/4 in 22 Study for ‘Recollection’, 1986 Pen and ink on graph paper 42 x 59 cm 16 1 ⁄2 x 23 1 ⁄4 in 23 Study for ‘Rubicon’, 1970 Pen and pencil on archival paper 30 x 39 cm 11 3⁄4 x 15 3⁄8 in
30 Towards ‘Flight’ series, 2008 Unique inkjet 36.4 x 32.9 cm 14 3⁄8 x 13 in 31 Untitled Drawing, 2009 Unique inkjet 35.4 x 29.7 cm 14 x 11 3⁄4 in
15 Study for ‘Villandry’, 1966 Pencil on paper 24.6 x 25.9 cm | 9 3⁄4 x 10 1 ⁄4 in
16 Study for ‘Villandry’, 1966 Pencil on paper 25.7 x 27.1 cm | 10 1 ⁄8 x 10 5⁄8 in
17 Study for ‘Versailles’, 1966 Pencil on paper 25.7 x 30.2 cm | 10 1 ⁄8 x 11 7⁄8 in
18 Study for ‘Versailles’, 1966 Pencil on paper 23.6 x 28.5 cm | 9 1 ⁄4 x 11 1 ⁄4 in
19 Towards ‘Minaret’ series, 1983 Pencil on graph paper 41.4 x 57.5 cm | 16 1 ⁄4 x 22 5⁄8 in
20 Towards ‘Tower’ series, 1980 Pencil on graph paper 41.9 x 59.3 cm | 16 1 ⁄2 x 23 3⁄8 in
21 Study for ‘Recollection’, 1986 Pen and ink on graph paper 42 x 59 cm | 16 1 ⁄2 x 23 1/4 in
22 Study for ‘Recollection’, 1986 Pen and ink on graph paper 42 x 59 cm | 16 1 ⁄2 x 23 1 ⁄4 in
23 Study for ‘Rubicon’, 1970 Pen and pencil on archival paper 30 x 39 cm | 11 3⁄4 x 15 3⁄8 in
24 Study for ‘Garden of Anna’, 1966 Pencil on paper 27.5 x 38 cm | 10 7⁄8 x 15 in
25 Study for ‘Versailles’, 1966 Pencil on paper 27.5 x 38 cm | 10 7⁄8 x 15 in
26 Study for ‘Thirty One Steps’, 1985 Pencil on graph paper 21.5 x 21.5 cm | 8 1 ⁄2 x 8 1 ⁄2 in
27 Study for ‘Thirty One Steps’, 1985 Pencil on graph paper 20 x 20 cm | 7 7⁄8 x 7 7⁄8 in
28 Study for ‘North West’, 1986 Pencil on graph paper 41.4 x 57.5 cm | 6 1 ⁄4 x 22 5⁄8 in
29 Study for ‘Red Pyramid’, 1987 Pencil on graph paper 12.5 x 20 cm | 4 7⁄8 x 7 7⁄8 in
30 Towards ‘Flight’ series, 2008 Unique inkjet 36.4 x 32.9 cm | 14 3⁄8 x 13 in
31 Untitled Drawing, 2009 Unique inkjet 35.4 x 29.7 cm | 14 x 11 3â „4 in
Biography and Bibliography Biography Born 1937, Vienna, Austria; moved to UK in 1938 Lives and works in London, UK Education 1954–57 St. Martins School of Art and Design, London 1957–60 Slade School of Fine Art, University College London Teaching 1968–99 Slade School of Fine Art, University College London 1964–68 Hornsey College of Art, London
Selected solo exhibitions 2017 Light Surrounded, Albertz Benda Gallery, New York, USA 2016 Dark and Light: Recent Paintings, Megan Piper Gallery, London, UK 2015 Extraterrestrial, East Gallery, NUA, Norwich, UK (with Alison Wilding) 2014 Landscapes of Space, Djanogly Art Gallery, Nottingham, UK 2012
The Piper Gallery, London, UK
2008
Lyon & Turnbull, London, UK
2003
Purdy Hicks Gallery, London, UK
2001
Clifford Chance, London, UK
2001
Purdy Hicks Gallery, London, UK
1993
Todd Gallery, London, UK
1988
The Serpentine Gallery, London, UK
1984
The Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, UK
1984
The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK
1980
Adelaide Festival Centre, Adelaide, Australia
1976
Flowers Gallery, London, UK
1973 Tess Jaray, Marc Vaux: Recent Paintings, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK 1972
City Art Gallery, Bristol, UK
1972
Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, UK
1969
Axiom Gallery, London, UK
1967
Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh, UK
1965
Hamiltons Gallery, London, UK
1963
Grabowski Gallery, London, UK
Selected group exhibitions 2017-18 Kaleidoscope: Colour and Sequence in 1960s British Art, Arts Council collection touring show, UK 2016
Tell it Slant, Frith Street Gallery, London, UK
2013 The Edge of Painting, The Piper Gallery, London, UK 2013 Drawings: Mel Bochner, Robert Holyhead, Ann-Marie James, Tess Jaray, Bridget Riley, Alison Wilding, Karsten Schubert, London, UK 2013 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK 2012 New Possibilities: Abstract Painting from the Seventies, The Piper Gallery, London, UK 2012 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK 2012 Synthesis, Peppercanister Gallery, Dublin, Ireland 2011 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK The Shape of Things, Ferrate Gallery, Tel Aviv, Israel 2010 Layers: John Moores Painting Prize Retrospective, Seongnam, Korea
Cultural Foundation, Seongnam, Korea
2010 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK 2009 The Rise of Women Artists, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK 2009 Jerwood Drawing Prize, Jerwood Space, London, UK 2009 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London, UK 2008
Contact, 79a Brick Lane, London, UK
2008 ARTfutures, Contemporary Art Society, London, UK
2003 Summer Exhibition, Purdy Hicks Gallery, London, UK 2002 Out of Line: Drawings from the Arts Council Collection, Winfield Arts, Suffolk; ArtSway, Sway and Burton Art Gallery, Bideford, UK 2002 Summer Exhibition, Purdy Hicks Gallery, London, UK 1998
Small is Beautiful, Flowers East, London, UK
1996 British Abstract Art Part III: Drawing, Flowers East, London, UK 1994 British Abstract Art Part I: Painting, Flowers East, London, UK 1993 The Sixties Art Scene in London, Barbican Art Gallery, London, UK 1992 Women’s Art, New Hall Art Collection, New Hall College, Cambridge, UK 1992 Small is Beautiful Part IX: Abstract, Flowers East, London, UK 1991 New Meanings for City Centres, Birmingham Galleries and Museums,Birmingham, UK 1990 The Abstract Print Show, Flowers East, London, UK 1989 Approaches to Public Art, Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK 1989 A Spiritual Dimension, Peterborough Art Museum and Gallery, Peterborough, UK 1988 The Presence of Painting: Aspects of British Abstraction, Mappin Gallery, Sheffield, UK 1988 Athena Art Awards, Barbican Art Gallery, London, UK 1987 Inaugural Exhibition, Patricia Knight Fine Art, London, UK 1986 9th British International Print Biennale, Bradford City Art Gallery, Bradford, UK 1986 The Unbroken Line: 50 Years of British Drawing 1936–86, Gillian Jason Gallery, London, UK
2008 Exacting Standards, Lemon Street Gallery, Truro, UK
1985 Holdings: 4th Biennale of European Graphic Art, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery and Baden-Baden, Germany
2007 Repetition & Sequence, Jerwood Space, London, UK
1985 One Percent, Levitt Bernstein Associates, London, UK
2007 Sequence & Repetition, Brunel Arts Centre, Brunel University, London, UK
1982 80 Prints by Modern Masters, Angela Flowers Gallery, London, UK
2006 Summer Exhibition, Purdy Hicks Gallery, London, UK
1982 Women’s Art Show, Castle Museum, Nottingham, UK
2005 Private View: Forty Years On, Rocket Gallery, London, UK
1981 Artists in Camden, Camden Arts Centre, London, UK
2005 Summer Exhibition, Purdy Hicks Gallery, London, UK
1979 6th British International Print Biennale, Bradford City Art Gallery, UK
2004 Visual Rhythms, Bury St. Edmunds Art Gallery, Suffolk, UK
1979 Painting Exhibition, Felicity Samuel Gallery, London, UK
1978
Hayward Annual, Hayward Gallery, London, UK
1977 Miniatures Exhibition, Coracle Press, London, UK 1977 British Artists of the Sixties, Tate Gallery, London, UK 1976
The Deck of Cards, JPL Fine Art, London, UK
1974 British Painting 1974, Hayward Gallery, London, UK 1973 Seven from London, Kunsthalle Bern, Bern, Germany 1970 3rd Salon International de Galeries Pilotes: Artistes et Découvreurs de Notre Temps Musé, Cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, Switzerland and Musée d’Arts, Paris, France 1969 Fine Art for Industry, Royal College of Art, London, UK 1969 Recent British Prints, IBM Gallery, New York, NY, US 1968 Junge Generation Grossbritannien, Die Akademie der Kunst, Berlin, Germany 1968 Grabados de Artistas Britanicos: Nuevas Tendencias, Instituto National de Bellas Artes y Literatura, Mexico City, Mexico 1968 67th International Biennale of Prints, National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, Japan 1967 British Gouaches and Prints, Sundsvall Museum, Sundsvall, Sweden 1967 The 9th International Art Exhibition of Japan, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan 1967 Transatlantic Graphics 1960–67, Camden Arts Centre, London, UK
Selected Commissions 2017 Aleppo At King’s Cross, installation at the Tapestry Building, London, UK 2012
Paving for St. Mary’s Church, Nottingham, UK
2011 Terrazzo paving for 23 Newman Street, London, UK 2005 Piazza for Anyang Art Festival, Anyang, South Korea 2005–06 Outpatients’ area of University Hospitals, Coventry and Warwick, UK 1999–01 Forecourt of New British Embassy, Moscow, Russia 1995–00 Piazza, The Broadway, Wimbledon, UK 1995–08 Leeds General Infirmary, Leeds, UK 1994 Master plan for refurbishment of Pontefract Town Centre, UK 1991 Roof terrace for Headquarters of Arts Council Building, London, UK 1989–92 Wakefield Cathedral Precinct, Wakefield, UK 1988–92 Centenary Square, Birmingham, UK 1987 Decorative floor for Midlands Art Centre, Birmingham, UK 1986 Decorative floor for ceremonial entrance, Garden Festival, Stoke-on-Trent, UK 1985 Terrazzo floor for London Victoria station, London, UK 1967 Mural for British Pavilion, Expo 1967, Montreal, Canada
1967 Recent British Painting: Peter Stuyvesant Foundation Collection, Tate Gallery, London, UK
Public collections
1967 British Painting and Sculpture from the Collection of Leicestershire Education Authority, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK
Arts Council Collection, London, UK
1966 London Under Forty, Galleria Milano, Milan, Italy; The Musée du Louvre, Paris, France; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart and Kunsthalle Berlin, Berlin, Germany 1965 Trends in Contemporary British Painting, Bear Lane Gallery, Oxford, UK
Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, UK Contemporary Art Society, London, UK Fogg Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, US Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield, UK Museum des 20 Jahrhunderts, Vienna, Austria Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Germany Museum of Contemporary Art, Belgrade, Serbia Sundsvall Museum, Sundsvall, Sweden
1965 Op and Pop: Current English Art, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden
Sz.pmüv.szeti Múzeum, Budapest, Croatia
1964 Painting Towards Environment, Bear Lane Gallery, Oxford; Arts Council Gallery, Cambridge; Sussex University, Sussex and Arts Council Gallery, Cardiff, UK
The British Council, London, UK
1962 Nine Painters from England: Ayres, Cohen, Coviello, Denny, House, Hoyland, Jaray, Turnbull, Vaux, Galleria Trastevere, Rome, Italy
University College London, London, UK
1961 Neue Malerei in England, Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Germany 1959 London Group, The Royal Society of British Artists Galleries, London, UK
Tate Collection, London, UK The British Museum, London, UK The Sainsbury Centre, Norwich, UK Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK Western Australia Art Gallery, Perth, Australia Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum, Worcester, UK
Selected Solo Publication, Articles And Reviews 2012 Richard Davey, Tess Jaray: Thresholds, Royal Academy of Arts Publications, London 2012 Terry Pitts, Tess Jaray: Mapping the Unseeable, The Piper Gallery, London 2012 Rachel Campbell-Johnston, ‘Show Business’, RA Magazine, no.115,summer 2010 Brian Sewell, ‘Oh, No! It’s the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition’, Evening Standard, 10 June 2010 Nancy Campbell, ‘Tess Jaray: Painting: Mysteries and Confessions’, Times Literary Supplement, May 2003 Mel Gooding, Tess Jaray: New Paintings, Purdy Hicks Gallery, London 2003
Martin Coomer, ‘Tess Jaray’, Time Out, 5 March
2001 Nigel Frank, Tess Jaray: Prints 1966–2001, Clifford Chance, London 2001 Judith Bumpus, ‘Corridors and Uniforms’, RA Magazine, no.72, autumn 2001 Terry Grimley, ‘When Art is More Than Mere Decoration’, Birmingham Post, 22 August 2001 Louisa Buck, ‘Tess Jaray’s New Paintings’, Art Newspaper, March 2000 Kim Williams, ’Environmental Patterns: Paving Designs by Tess Jaray’, Nexus Network Journal, vol.2, June 1998 Deanna Petherbridge, Art for Architecture: The Jerwood Art for Architecture Award, Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh 1998 Nonie Nieswand, ‘Architecture’, The Independent, 18 September 1995 Richard Cork, ‘Praise Be to All Saints’, The Times, 23 February 1991 Barbara Tilson, ‘Art for the People’, RIBA Journal, November 1991 ‘Centenary Square’, Architecture Today, 17 April
1988 Richard Cork and Robin Vousden, Tess Jaray: Paintings and Drawings from the Eighties, Serpentine Gallery, London 1988
Richard Cork, ‘Art Loco’, The Listener
1988 Patricia Morison, ‘Abstract with Feeling’, Daily Telegraph 1988 Brian Sewell, ‘A Talent to Confuse’, Evening Standard 1985 Patricia Morison, ‘BR Wants to be Beautiful’, The Financial Times 1985 Brian Sewell, ‘Spectrum: How Tess Floored Victoria’, The Times, March 1984 Deanna Petherbridge, ‘Introduction’, Tess Jaray: Prints and Drawings 1964–84 Ashmolean Museum, Oxford 1984 Robert Vousden, ‘Introduction’, Tess Jaray: Ten New Paintings, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester 1984 Helena Drysdale, ‘Tess Jaray’, Artscribe, no.46, May 1984 Lynne Cooke, ‘Tess Jaray’, Art Monthly, no.76, May 1980 Malcolm Quantrille, ‘The Work of Tess Jaray: An Environment of Optical Perfection’, Adelaide Festival Guide, Adelaide Festival Centre Trust, Adelaide 1980 Ian Simpson, ‘Tess Jaray: In Pursuit of Perfection’, The Artist 1979 Griselda Pollock, ‘Feminism, Femininity and the Hayward Annual Exhibition 1978’, Feminist Review, no.2 1978 Sarah Kent, ‘Introduction’, Hayward Annual, Hayward Gallery, London 1978 Adrian Searle, ‘Thermodynamics: Thoughts on Four Artists at the Hayward Annual’, Artscribe, no.13, August
1991 Colin Amery, ‘Architecture’, The Financial Times, 15 April
1973 Robert Kudielka, ‘Introduction’, Tess Jaray, Marc Vaux: Recent Paintings, Whitechapel Gallery, London
1991 Richard Cork, ‘Second City Finds Its Feet’, The Times, 15 April
1969 Robert Kudielka, ‘Tess Jaray: New Paintings’, Art International, summer
1991 Andrew Gibbon Williams, ‘Prettifying Carbuncles’, The Times, April
1969 Alan Bowness, ‘Tess Jaray’s New Work’, Studio International, June
1991 Hugh Pearman, ‘Design Goes Against Convention’, The Sunday Times
1967 John Russell, ‘London: The Simplifiers’, Art in America, vol.55, September–October
1990 Andrew Gibbon Williams, ‘Prettifying Carbuncles’, The Times, April
1967 Gene Baro, ‘Tess Jaray’s Mural for Expo 67’, Studio International, March
1990
1963 Jasia Reichardt, ‘Introduction’, Tess Jaray, Grabowski Gallery, London Norbert Lynton, ‘London Letter’, Art International, October
‘Art and Buildings’, Architectural Review
1989 Clive Memmott, ‘The Art of Paving’, Townscapes, October 1989 Rebecca Fortnum, ‘Living Perspective: Tess Jaray and Inner City Design’, WASL Journal 1989 Malcolm Miles, ‘Speakeasy’, New Art Examiner, summer 1989 Charles Darwent, ‘Bollards Do Furnish a Town’, The Guardian
Selected Anthologies
Selected Writings By The Artist
2012 Marius Granger, ‘Tess Jaray’, Layers: John Moores Painting Prize Retrospective, Seongnam Cultural Foundation, Seongnam
2013 ‘Foreword’, The Edge of Painting, The Piper Gallery, London
2005 Kim Williams and Judith Flagg Moran, ‘Urban Spaces and Pavements, the Work of the Cosmati, Carlo Scarpa and Tess Jaray’, Michele Emmer (ed), Mathematics and Culture, Springer, New York 1998 Mel Gooding and Vivien Lovell, Public Art Space, Merrell Holberton Publishers Ltd, London 1992 Richard Cork, Architect’s Choice: in Architecture in Great Britain Since 1945, Thames & Hudson, London 1991 Percent for Art: A Review, Arts Council of Great Britain, London 1987 Deanna Petherbridge, Art for Architecture: A Handbook for Commissioning, HMSO, London 1970 Edward Lucie-Smith and Patricia White, Art in Britain 1969–70, J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd, London
‘Introduction’, Patrick George, Browse & Darby, London 2012
‘Introduction’, Summer Exhibition Illustrated 2012, Royal Academy of Arts, London
2011 ‘Quiet Revelation: The Drawings of Watteau’, RA Magazine, no.110, spring 2010 Painting: Mysteries & Confessions, Lenz Books, London (first edition); Royal Academy of Arts, London (second edition; 2012) 2010 ‘Introduction’, Neal Jones: The Absurd is the New Sublime, L-13 Light Industrial Workshop, London 2009 Michael Sandle: Chiaroscuro, Time & Memory, Art Space Gallery, London 2009 ‘Introduction’, Timothy Hyman: The Man Inscribed with London,Austin/Desmond, London 2008
Contact, 79a Brick Lane, London
1969 Edward Lucie-Smith, Movements in Art Since 1945, Thames & Hudson, London
2008 The World in a Speck of Red Dust, The Work of Onya McCausland, Gloucester Cathedral, Gloucester
1969 C. H. Waddington, Behind Appearance, Edinburgh University Press,Edinburgh
2002 For Years Now: Poems by W. G. Sebald with Images by Tess Jaray, Short Books, London 2002 ‘A Mystery and a Confession’, Irish Pages, vol.1, no.2, autumn–winter 2001 ‘Introduction’, From the Rings of Saturn and Vertigo, Purdy Hicks Gallery, London 1997 ‘The Expressive Power of Brickwork’, Brick Bulletin, autumn 1992 ‘My Kind of Town’, Architecture Today, no.32, October 1990 ‘Art in the Public Domain’, Context and Collaboration, PACA, London
Published on the occasion of the exhibition ‘Tess Jaray: Into Light’ at Marlborough Fine Art (London) May 25 to June 17, 2017 In collaboration with Ridinghouse 46 Lexington Street London W1F 0LP United Kingdom ridinghouse.co.uk Distributed in the UK and Europe by Cornerhouse Publications c/o Home 2 Tony Wilson Place Manchester M15 4FN United Kingdom cornerhousepublications.org Distributed in the US by RAM Publications + Distribution, Inc. 2525 Michigan Avenue Building A2 Santa Monica, CA 90404 United States rampub.com Images © 2017 Tess Jaray. All rights reserved Interview © 2017 Tess Jaray and John Stezaker For the book in this form © 2017 Ridinghouse Copyedited by Karsten Schubert Designed by Stocks Taylor Benson Set in Gotham Printed by Impress Print Services Marlborough catalogue number 666 ISBN 978 - 1 - 909932 - 35 – 7 (Ridinghouse) All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any other information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data: A full catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
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