Allen Jones

Born in Southampton, England in 1937, Allen Jones is a leading figure of the British Pop Art movement. Working across painting, sculpture and printmaking, he draws on advertising, fashion and popular imagery to examine the representation of the human body. His bold compositions, vivid colours and provocative treatment of the female figure have made him one of the most recognisable and debated artists of his generation.

Jones studied at Hornsey College of Art from 1955 to 1959 before attending the Royal College of Art in London, where his contemporaries included David Hockney, R. B. Kitaj and Peter Phillips. Although he was expelled after one year, his inclusion in the Young Contemporaries exhibition in 1961 helped establish his position among a new generation of British artists challenging traditional approaches to figurative art.

Inspired by American advertising and commercial culture between 1964 and 1965 in New York, the artist adopted saturated colours and provocative imagery. His early paintings often combine fragmented figures, geometric forms and unconventional materials, challenging the boundaries between painting and sculpture. In 1969, he created Hatstand, Table and Chair, a series of life-sized fibreglass sculptures depicting female figures as functional furniture. First exhibited in 1970, the works provoked controversy over their depiction of women and remain among the most debated examples of Pop Art.

Throughout his career, Jones has explored the human form across painted steel sculptures, figurative canvases and lithographs, extending this interest into monumental public works that examine movement, colour and the relationship between the body and its surroundings. Elected a Royal Academician in 1986, he has exhibited internationally, with a major retrospective at the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 2014, which spanned more than five decades of his practice. Jones’s work is held in collections including the Tate in London and Museum Ludwig in Cologne, and has achieved notable results at auction. In February 2013, Hatstand, Table and Chair sold for £2,169,250 at Christie’s London. He continues to live and work between London and Oxfordshire.