Ray Howard-Jones Sold at Auction Prices

Portrait painter, Landscape painter, b. 1903 - d. 1996

(b 1903; d 1996) Ray Howard-Jones was an acclaimed poet-painter of Welsh parents, brought up in Wales but born in England in 1903. While Howard-Jones spent most of her life and exhibited her work in Wales, she produced many solo and group exhibitions of her works in England, Scotland and Paris. Howard-Jones’ works are now in the collections of several institutions in Britain and abroad.

Howard-Jones trained at the Slade School of Fine Art in London, where she eventually became a Senior Slade scholar and winner of many prizes. She became an accredited War Artist, working as the only woman with the Royal Navy to record the D-Day shipping and the Army and RAF on Coastal Defence. Howard-Jones organized classical concerts in the Cardiff parks during the first year of the war. During this period Howard-Jones and Gomer Llywelyn Jones, the Welsh composer, ran the East Moors theatre in Cardiff.

In 1949 Howard-Jones embarked on a nine-year stint on the uninhabited island of Skomer, where she produced distinguished botanical and ornithological illustrations.

Howard-Jones spent several years working in the National Museum of Wales, dealing with archaeological reconstruction for the published works of Sir Cyril Fox and Dr. Nash-Williams. Howard-Jones wrote highly regarded poetry, and was a pioneer of community arts.
Ray Howard-Jones’ papers, including correspondence, diaries, notes, draft poems, and papers relating to exhibitions, photographs, slides and printed materials were donated and transferred to the National Museum and Gallery in Cardiff.