Following school Jonathan worked in architecture until 1969 when, feeling that there must be a better life than tearing down good buildings to put up bad, he entered Camberwell School of Art & Crafts. Specialising in Graphic Design and Printmaking he came in to contact with two excellent teachers who instilled an enduring enthusiasm for etching and woodcuts.
In 1971 he made his first of many extended trips around the USA from which sprang a series of prints of small-town and highway scenes. He went on to series’ including Kent and Surrey landscapes and Venice to name just two. All except one piece the work on show this February, ‘The Greyhound Series’, form just part of his American scenes. Work from his Venice trips will be on show later this year. Now living in Shrewsbury he is making a series of drawings of Shropshire’s old parish churches.
Previous exhibitions include five one-man shows in London and his work is held in the following collections:
Victoria & Albert Museum
Albertina Museum, Vienna
The Museum of Modern Art, Venice
Birmingham City Museum & Art Gallery
Leicester Museum & Art Gallery
Northampton Museum & Art Gallery
Portsmouth City Museum & Art Gallery
Walsall Museum & Art gallery
Tel-Aviv Museum of Art
and many library, college & private collections.
Jonathans chosen printing technique is to print by hand using the back of a wooden spoon! This he says allows him to adjust the pressure across the print. The runs are low - generally limited to 50 signed prints per run, some of the images are reduced block linocuts and the editions are then just 12 signed prints. The numbering indicated does not reflect the number of prints available - 10 of 50 for example does not mean there are 40 prints available because he never printed the whole edition in one go, rather in small batches. This kind of hand-printing is very hard work which he can no longer do. Therefore the editions will never be completed.
Generally there are just 3 or 4 examples available unless stated.The work is either mounted and framed behind glass at £325 ea or available unframed at £275.
