THE KINGDOM OF PLANTS - Charles Jones
Sean Sexon (1954-), photographic historian and collector, discovered the then-unknown work of Charles Jones at Bermondsey Market in 1981. Charles Jones, the enigmatic author of the photographs collected here for the first time, can be seen as a skilled gardener, an inspired photographer, a precise botanist or an unexpected practitioner of the still life. He is all these things and more. His images, dating from 1895-1910, are imbued with the special charm of early photography, and with the grain and density of work by the likes of Atget and Julia Margaret Cameron. We'll probably never know why or how he came to photograph these ordinary plants so obsessively.
For Jones didn't photograph his vegetables, fruit and flowers in their natural setting; on the contrary, he isolated his compositions against neutral backgrounds, thus obtaining attractive "portraits" of beans and onions, squash and turnips, sunflowers and tulips, plums and pears. His technique, characterized by tight framing, long exposure times and sober compositions, anticipates the later achievements of the modern masters by several decades.
Preface by Gilles Clément
Published in 1999 by Thames & Hudson, edited by Sean Sexton and Robert Flynn Johnson
28.8 cm x 28.8 cm, 128 pages, good condition,
ISBN 9782878111712
Sean Sexon (1954-), photographic historian and collector, discovered the then-unknown work of Charles Jones at Bermondsey Market in 1981. Charles Jones, the enigmatic author of the photographs collected here for the first time, can be seen as a skilled gardener, an inspired photographer, a precise botanist or an unexpected practitioner of the still life. He is all these things and more. His images, dating from 1895-1910, are imbued with the special charm of early photography, and with the grain and density of work by the likes of Atget and Julia Margaret Cameron. We'll probably never know why or how he came to photograph these ordinary plants so obsessively.
For Jones didn't photograph his vegetables, fruit and flowers in their natural setting; on the contrary, he isolated his compositions against neutral backgrounds, thus obtaining attractive "portraits" of beans and onions, squash and turnips, sunflowers and tulips, plums and pears. His technique, characterized by tight framing, long exposure times and sober compositions, anticipates the later achievements of the modern masters by several decades.
Preface by Gilles Clément
Published in 1999 by Thames & Hudson, edited by Sean Sexton and Robert Flynn Johnson
28.8 cm x 28.8 cm, 128 pages, good condition,
ISBN 9782878111712
Sean Sexon (1954-), photographic historian and collector, discovered the then-unknown work of Charles Jones at Bermondsey Market in 1981. Charles Jones, the enigmatic author of the photographs collected here for the first time, can be seen as a skilled gardener, an inspired photographer, a precise botanist or an unexpected practitioner of the still life. He is all these things and more. His images, dating from 1895-1910, are imbued with the special charm of early photography, and with the grain and density of work by the likes of Atget and Julia Margaret Cameron. We'll probably never know why or how he came to photograph these ordinary plants so obsessively.
For Jones didn't photograph his vegetables, fruit and flowers in their natural setting; on the contrary, he isolated his compositions against neutral backgrounds, thus obtaining attractive "portraits" of beans and onions, squash and turnips, sunflowers and tulips, plums and pears. His technique, characterized by tight framing, long exposure times and sober compositions, anticipates the later achievements of the modern masters by several decades.
Preface by Gilles Clément
Published in 1999 by Thames & Hudson, edited by Sean Sexton and Robert Flynn Johnson
28.8 cm x 28.8 cm, 128 pages, good condition,
ISBN 9782878111712
