Jonah Jones: Window, baldacchino and mosaics
Title: Window, baldacchino and mosaics
Artist: Jonah Jones (1919–2004, British)
Location: Church of St Patrick’s, Newport (RC)
Date: 1962
Jonah Jones’s concrete-glass window, baldacchino and mosaics are installed at the Catholic Church of St Patrick, Newport, Gwent. The large window shows the saint in purple archbishop’s vestments. Much of the background is plain glass, but the borders contain entwined green tendrils and St Patrick is flanked by curved red mandorle (ellipse forms). The baldacchino is painted with an angel on the wing holding up a chalice, against a deep red field spangled with stars. The apse wall bears a mosaic of Christ Resurrected, flanked by motifs of the four evangelists, also in mosaic.
Born in north east England, Jonah Jones (1919–2004) is best known as a Welsh sculptor, writer and artist-craftsman. Following demobilisation as a non-combatant in the British Army, in 1947, Jones began a shared practice with the artist John Petts in North Wales, followed by a short, intensive stay at the workshop of the late Eric Gill, where he learned the techniques of lettering and stone carving. During the 1950s Jones established a full-time workshop practice where he also taught himself glass techniques and painted in watercolour laced with calligraphy.
His private work is marked by a preoccupation with Christian imagery and biblical themes, the Welsh mythological tales of the Mabinogion and the landscape of North Wales; his treatment of Welsh subject matter and working of Welsh-language texts were abiding themes.
Jonah Jones’s other major public commissions include work for the chapels of Ratcliffe College, Leicestershire; Ampleforth College, North Yorkshire; and Loyola Hall, Rainhill, Merseyside; the Catholic church at Morfa Nefyn, Gwynedd (now closed, with the windows relocated to St David’s, Mold); the National Museum, Cardiff; Coleg Harlech, Gwynedd (work now removed); and Mold Crown Court, Flintshire. In addition to his artistic practice, Jones acted as an external assessor for many UK art colleges in the 1960s and 70s, and was director of Dublin’s National College of Art and Design and the Kilkenny Design Workshops in 1974–1978. He had two novels published and wrote a book of largely autobiographical essays, an illustrated book about the lakes of North Wales, and a biography of Clough Williams-Ellis, the architect of Portmeirion. (Source)
Further Information
Medium: Mosaic and concrete glass
Permanent display
See Jones’ Window, baldacchino and mosaics on the Ecclesiart map here.
Other artworks in churches by Jonah Jones: stained glass at crypt and end chapels at Ampleforth College in North Yorkshire; stained glass window for the chapel at Llandudno General Hospital; windows for Jesuit retreat centre at Loyola Hall in Rainhill, Liverpool; twelve dalle de verre windows made in 1966 for the Church of the Resurrection of Our Saviour in Morfa Nefyn on the Llŷn peninsula, now in St David’s, Mold; stained glass and dalle de verre (slab glass) at Ratcliffe College, Leicestershire, made in 1960–62; windows for the Church of the English Martyrs at Hillmorton, Rugby; small stained glass lights and windows at Church of St John Fisher in West Heath, Birmingham; mosaic in nave at Church of the Most Holy Redeemer; mosaic of Christ the Holy Redeemer, now at Christ The Word Catholic School; rood cross crucifix, carved wooden candlestick, Ratcliffe College Chapel; Madonna and Child, Church of the Most Holy Redeemer, Porthmadog; crucifix, now in Hurst Green chapel, Lancashire; crucifixion, Emery Chapel, Ratcliffe College; baldacchino in Emery Chapel, Ratcliffe College; Ratcliffe College Chapel; Stations of the Cross and crucifix, St John Fisher, West Heath, Birmingham.