Barbara Jones was born in Croydon, Surrey. She attended Coloma Convent Girls' School, and (from May to July 1924) went to Croydon High School before going on to Croydon School of Art then studying Mural Decoration at the Royal College of Art.
During World War II she was associated with the Recording Britain project of the Pilgrim Trust. Examples of her striking murals were for the post-war Britain Can Make It exhibition of 1947, the 1951 Festival of Britain exhibition; on the P&O passenger liner ships SS Orcades, SS Oronsay, SS Orsova and SS Oriana, and for hotels, restaurants, exhibitions and schools. She made designs for the children's television series The Woodentops. Most of the works, because of the nature of where they were created, have now disappeared. However many books containing her artwork remain, in the form of dust-jackets and illustrations.
In 1951 Barbara organised Black Eyes and Lemonade, a Festival of Britain related exhibition of popular and traditional art at the Whitechapel Gallery. In 1999 an exhibition was held at the Katharine House Gallery in Marlborough which contained many works that she had kept in her studio in Hampstead.
She was said to belong to that group of Royal College of Art artists and illustrators, more well-known than she, who were her contemporaries: John Piper, Edward Bawden, Eric Ravilious and Edward Ardizzone. When she was at Croydon High School she made friends with a girl called Joyce Drew who later became architect and town planner Jane Drew, and it seems they influenced each other in their careers: Jane said they stayed friends.
She married the artist Clifford Barry whom she met at the Royal College of Art, and he designed the covers for some of her books. The marriage did not last long and they did not have any children.
The most influential books, written and illustrated by her
The Unsophisticated Arts, London: Architectural Press (1951)
A richly illustrated survey of English vernacular art - with material on taxidermy, fairgrounds, canal boats, seaside, riverside, tattooing, the decoration of food, waxworks, toys, rustic work, shops, festivals and funerals. Based on her influential series of articles for the “Architectural Review”
Follies and Grottoes, London: Constable & Co. (1953)
Her pioneering survey of the quirky and the picturesque - black-bayes, grottoes, hermitages, labyrinths, grotesque architecture, towers, bones and druids, folly gardens and more.
Design for Death, London: Andre Deutsch (1967)
Grim and comic, recording the "beautiful, vulgar, frightening and propitiatory things that people make when confronted by that shocking and unwelcome reminder, the death of another". Chapters on the corpse; the shroud; the coffin; the hearse; the floral tributes; printing and the word; the procession; the cemetery and the crematorium; the tomb; relics and memento, etc.
Other books written and illustrated by her
Jones, Barbara: The Isle of Wight illustrated and described by Barbara Jones, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, (1950)
Jones, Barbara: English Furniture at a glance written and illustrated by Barbara Jones, London: Architectural Press (1954), also 1971 edition
Jones, Barbara: Water-Colour Painting, London: Adam & Charles Black, (1960)
Braybrooke, June & Jones, Barbara: Isobel English, London: Max Parrish & Co., (1964)
Jones, Barbara: Twit and Howlet and the Balloon, London: Longman Young Books, (1970)
Jones, Barbara & Howell, Bill: Popular Arts of the First World War, London: Studio Vista, (1972) Review
Books written by others, with her illustrations or articles
Casson, Hugh & others: Bombed Churches as War Memorials with a foreword by the Dean of St. Paul's, illustrated by Barbara Jones, Neville Conder, and Peter Shepheard, Cheam: Architectural Press (1945)
Palmer, Arnold: Recording Britain, London: Oxford University Press in association with the Pilgrim Trust (1946-1949) The published version of the wartime effort at recording in a series of watercolours (mainly newly commissioned) the changing face of the country, with work by Byron Dawson, Russell Flint, Martin Hardie, Rowland Hilder, Barbara Jones, John Piper, Kenneth Rowntree, Ruskin Spear and others. Over thirty full-page illustrations by Barbara Jones.
Goodden, Wyndham: This or That? illustrated by Barbara Jones, Edinburgh: HMSO for the Scottish Committee of the Council of Industrial Design, (1947)
Weidenfeld, A.G.: The Changing Nation: A Contact Book, London: Contact Publications, (1947). A collection of post-war essays on Britain in transition. Barbara Jones contributed a six-page piece on "The Pattern of Suburbia", with her own illustrations.
Bott, Alan: The Londoner's England Contemporary watercolours and drawings of London and the Home Counties. London: Avalon Press, (1947). Plates by Adrian Bury, Hanslip Fletcher, Barbara Jones, Claude Muncaster, John Piper, Vincent Lines, Randolph Schwabe, Ruskin Spear and many more. Barbara Jones is represented by a monochrome plate of the "Jolly Farmer" at Farnham.
Williams-Ellis, Clough: On Trust for the Nation with drawings by Barbara Jones. London : Paul Elek, (1947). The first of two attractively-produced guided tours by the architect of Portmeirion, illustrating the work and properties of the National Trust.
Ballam,Harry & Morton, Phyllis Digby (editors): The Christmas Book, London: Sampson Low, (1947). Illustrations by Pearl Falconer, Barbara Jones, Leonard Rosoman, etc. Barbara Jones contributes three illustrations to a Constance Spry piece on "The Kissing Bunch and Other Fancies".
Fraser, G. S.: Vision of Scotland with drawings by Barbara Jones. London: Paul Elek, (1948).
Bentley, Nicolas; Betjeman, John; Bowen, Elizabeth; Smoth,Stevie & others: Flower of Cities: A Book of London. Studies and sketches by twenty-two authors. London: Max Parrish, (1949). Includes four illustrations (of Hampstead) by Barbara Jones).
de Sélincourt, Aubrey: Dorset with drawings by Barbara Jones, London: Paul Elek, (1947)
Gregorson, Edith Ray: Timothy Tramcar, London: Railway World, (ca.1950). A story for children by the literary agent Edith Ray Gregorson (the wife of Robert Aickman and said to have been responsible for placing the original manuscripts of the Thomas the Tank Engine stories). Illustrated, almost throughout, by Barbara Jones.
Mottram, R.H.: East Anglia, London: William Collins Sons & Co. for the Festival of Britain Office, (1951). The fourth in a series produced for the Festival of Britain. With a colour title-page design by Barbara Jones.
Gruffydd, W.J.: South Wales and the Marches, London: William Collins Sons & Co. for the Festival of Britain Office, (1951). The sixth in a series produced the Festival of Britain. With two vignette tailpieces and a colour title-page design by Barbara Jones.
Addison, William: English Fairs and Markets with a dust-jacket by Barbara Jones, London: Batsford, (1953)
Ingram, Tom: Bells in England,London: Frederick Muller, (1954). Church-bells, cow-bells, bicycle-bells and more - illustrated by Barbara Jones.
BBC: Looking at Things: BBC Broadcasts to Schools, Autumn 1954, London: British Broadcasting Corporation, (1954). With a cover design and several other illustrations by Barbara Jones.
BBC: Time and Tune: BBC Broadcasts to Schools, Spring Term 1955, London: BBC, (1955). Illustrated throughout by Barbara Jones.
Ray, Cyril: The Compleat Imbiber: An Entertainment edited by Cyril Ray, designed by F. H. K. Henrion and Jane Mackay. London: Putnam & Co., (1956). The first of an annual series that continued until 1972, with a brief resurgence between 1986 and 1992 - a sparkling anthology. Barbara Jones illustrates an article by R.J.Charleston on Early English Drinking Glasses.
Bird, Maria: The Woodentops Washing Day, London: Publicity Products, (1956). The first of three Barbara Jones spin-offs from the popular BBC television series. The author, a former school-teacher, also scripted Andy Pandy and the Flowerpot Men. In the Colour Story Book series. The doll-like characters would appear to be based on drawings of Dutch dolls prepared by Barbara Jones for her book "The Unsophisticated Arts".
Bird, Maria: The Twins' Birthday, a Woodentops story, illustrated by Barbara Jones, London: Publicity Products, (1957). The last of three Barbara Jones spin-offs from the popular BBC television series, this in the form of a pop-up book, with three cut-out pop-up openings.
BBC: Singing Together & Rhythm and Melody': BBC Broadcasts to Schools, Spring Term 1957, London: BBC, (1957). With a spirited wrapper design and illustrations by Barbara Jones.
Newton, Douglas: Clowns, New York: Franklin Watts, (1957). Illustrations and dust-jacket by Barbara Jones.
Mascall, E.L.: Pi in the High - Dulce est de Desipere - In Loco, London: Faith Press, (1959). Illustrated throughout by Barbara Jones.
Braybrooke, Neville: A Partridge in a Pear Tree: A celebration for Christmas, London: Darton, Longman & Todd, (1960). An extensive anthology of seasonal verse and prose, with decorations by Barbara Jones and children of the Henry Fawcett School. The selection includes a Barbara Jones piece on "Traditional Joys".
BBC: Time & Tune: BBC Broadcasts to Schools. Summer Term 1960, London: BBC, (1960). Illustrated throughout with two-colour illustrations by Barbara Jones.
Norrie, Ian (ed.): The Book of the City, London: High Hill Books, (1961). 23 essays - factual, nostalgic and fanciful - on various aspects of the City of London - by Oswell Blakeston, Ivor Brown, Leonard Cottrell, Barbara Jones (on the Pageantry of the City), and others.
Hunt,Peter (ed.), The Shell Gardens Book, London: Phoenix House, in association with George Rainbird, (1964). An encyclopaedic view of gardens and gardening in Britain. Barbara Jones provided the text on follies, grottoes, sham castles, hermit cells, and more.
Peele, George, Twice so Fair, Leicester: Offcut Press, (1970). A collection of seven of Peele's Elizabethan lyrics, illustrated with linocuts executed by Paul Peter Piech from the drawings of Barbara Jones.
Hadfield, John (ed.), The Shell Guide to England, London: Michael Joseph, in association with Rainbird Books, (1970). A fine guide and gazetteer to historic England, in which Barbara Jones contributes the essay on English Follies.
Ouellette, William, Fantasy Postcards, with an Introduction by Barbara Jones. Garden City (USA): Doubleday & Co., (1975). Also London edition (1976).
Banham, Mary & Hiller, Bevis, (eds.), A Tonic to the Nation: The Festival of Britain 1951, London: Thames & Hudson, (1976). Among the contrinbutors Barbara Jones remembers her work on the Coastline of Britain, the Outside Broadcasting mural, the Lion and the Unicorn, Battersea Funfair, and the Exhibition of British Popular and Traditional Art.
Williams, Jonathan, Super-duper Zuppa Inglese (and other trifles from the land of stodge), Belper: Aggie Weston's Editions, (1977). A collection of eleven poems based on the idiosyncratic names of English dishes - "Toad in the Hole", "Spotted Dick", etc. With ten full-page illustrations and a dust-jacket design by Barbara Jones.
Contributions to periodicals by Barbara Jones
World Review, London: Edward Hulton, (1952).
Ark, London: Royal College of Art, (1953).
BBC Children's Annual, London: Burke (1957).
Typographica 8, London: Lund Humphries (1963).
Typographica 12, London: Lund Humphries (1965).
Books with dust-jackets by Barbara Jones
Blake, George, The Five Arches, London: William Collins Sons & Co., (1947).
