The Pineapple, Dunmore Park, Stirlingshire

Barbara Mildred Jones (1912 - 1978)

Lithograph

1971

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  • About the work
    Location
    Country: Uzbekistan
    City: Tashkent
    Place: British Embassy
    A green pineapple-shaped dome stands on top of a red-brick building surrounded by foliage, accessed by a path cutting through the centre of the composition. Barbara Jones’ The Pineapple, Dunmore Park, Stirlingshire depicts a ‘folly’ described in 1995 by Jack Stevenson (of the Royal Commission on the Ancient Monuments of Scotland) as ‘the most bizarre building in Scotland’. The building included a hothouse for growing pineapples; and was integrated into one of the garden walls of Dunmore Park, the ancestral home of the Earls of Dunmore, in Stirlingshire. It was commissioned by John Murray, 4th Earl of Dunmore, and built in 1761 by an unknown architect – possibly Sir William Chambers.

    u2028This lithograph was produced as an edition of Jones’ illustration for her book Follies and Grottoes (Constable and Co, 1953). The author of numerous illustrated books, Jones is particularly known for The Unsophisticated Arts (1951). This was the outcome of a decade spent documenting everyday art throughout Britain, visiting fairgrounds, tattoo parlours, taxidermists, houseboats, high street shops, seaside piers and amusement arcades. Her ground-breaking achievement coalesced in the exhibition Black Eyes and Lemonade held at the Whitechapel Gallery in 1951. Its impact on the younger generation of Pop artists has led to her becoming acknowledged as a ‘Mother of Pop’ by art historians Anne Massey and Catherine Moriarty. 

    Trained as a mural painter, a number of Jones’ large-scale works were commissions, notably, for the Britain Can Make It exhibition at the V&A (1947); for the interior of ocean liners like the S.S. Orsova (1953); the International Labour Office exhibition in Turin (1961); and the Philips Research Laboratory in Eindhoven (1966).
  • About the artist
    Born in Croydon, Barbara Jones was a prolific artist who produced painting, printmaking, book illustration and mural designs. A student of the Royal College of Art, London (1933-37) she was influenced especially by the linear styles of Edward Bawden and Eric Ravilious. She was one of the first artists commissioned by The Pilgrim Trust to depict historic buildings under threat from war damage, for the ‘Recording Britain’ project in the 1940s. In 1951 she published The Unsophisticated Arts, which featured British vernacular art forms such as fairgrounds, tattooing and canal boats. This book is now a popular collector’s item. Cited by the artist, Peter Blake as a major forerunner of 1960s British Pop Art, Jones never gained the wider recognition that she deserved, although she held several important positions including Associate of the Royal Academy, and Governorship of Central School of Arts from 1956-1964.
  • Explore
    Places
    Scotland
    Subjects
    topography, bird, aviary
    Materials & Techniques
    lithograph
  • Details
    Artist
    Barbara Mildred Jones (1912 - 1978)
    Title
    The Pineapple, Dunmore Park, Stirlingshire
    Portfolio Title
    Follies
    Edition
    20/70
    Date
    1971
    Medium
    Lithograph
    Acquisition
    Purchased from Editions Alecto, March 1972
    Inscription
    below image: 20/70 / The Pineapple at Dunmore / Barbara Jones
    GAC number
    9585