The Plant Kingdoms of Charles Jones - Hardcover

Sean Sexton; Robert Flynn Johnson

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0500544638 ISBN 13: 9780500544631

Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 2016

Synopsis

An exquisite visual feast for anyone who draws delight from the riches of nature

First published in 1998, The Plant Kingdoms of Charles Jones is an exquisite visual feast for anyone who draws delight from the bountiful riches of nature. It presents more than 100 photographs of vegetables, fruits and flowers, all taken by the same photographer at around the turn of the 20th century, and all set against neutral, dark or light backgrounds in the style of formal studio ‘portraits’.

Their creator, Charles Jones, is likely to remain forever a mysterious figure. In 1981 photography collector Sean Sexton discovered his surviving prints by chance in Bermondsey Market in London, and their publication rescued Jones and his genius from obscurity. We know that Jones was born in Wolverhampton, England, in 1866, the son of a master butcher. He trained as a gardener and was employed on a number of private estates, notably Ote Hall in Sussex, before retiring to Lincolnshire where he died in 1959 aged ninety-two. But Jones left no notes, diaries or writings to accompany his photographs, so we shall probably never know exactly how and why he came so obsessively and so brilliantly to photograph the plants he encountered in his everyday working life.

Jones’s techniques – close-up viewpoint, long exposure and spare composition – anticipate the achievements of better-known masters such as Karl Blossfeldt and Edward Weston. Revealing art in nature, the images have a wider significance in the history of photography and of the still-life in general, as explained in the book’s introduction by Robert Flynn Johnson. For a contemporary audience, the photographs’ simple and unembellished beauty is the perfect antidote to appetites jaded by processed foods and 21st-century artifice. They communicate and inspire a loving respect for the beauty in nature.

Table of Contents

Preface by Alice Waters · Introduction by Robert Flynn Johnson · 1. Vegetables 2. Flowers · 3. Fruit

About this title

Review:

In 1981, photo historian Sexton came across a stash of beautiful gelatin silver prints of fruits, vegetables, and other plants at a London antiques market. The photos were the work of a local gardener, Charles Jones (1866-1959), produced around the beginning of the 20th century. Johnson contextualizes the photography and imparts what information he can about the man who 'left no notes or diaries to explain why he photographed the plants he saw every day.' This handsomely illustrated volume features a preface by writer and restaurateur Alice Waters.

[Charles Jones's] pictures are not only lush and nearly edible, they are surprisingly, severely modern in appearance-they resemble the work of Karl Blossfeldt, and anticipate that of Irving Penn. Do I need to mention that each specimen appears to represent the very apex of its species?

About the Author:

Sean Sexton is an Irish-born photographic collector and author of The Irish: A Photohistory. He has been collecting historic photographs of Ireland for 40 years. His passion and expertise have made him a world leader in the field. Robert Flynn Johnson was for many years Curator of Prints at the Achenbach Foundation, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. He has been an avid collector of anonymous photographs for many years, and his previous books include Anonymous.

About this edition

• Publisher: Thames and Hudson Ltd
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0500544638
• ISBN 13: 9780500544631
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 128