Alfred Janes - Maker of Pictures

By Ceri Thomas

Alfred Janes memorably described himself not as a painter but as "a maker of pictures". Over a long career the artist worked in a range of styles and with traditional and modern materials, ranging from oil paint and pastel to paper and perspex. Born in Swansea in 1911, Janes was being described as a " brilliant young painter" just one year after he entered Swansea School of Art at sixteen. He developed an early interest in portraiture and still-life, and these two genres informed much of his subsequent career. In the 1930s, he was a member of the now legendary ' Kardomah Gang' which included his close friends and contemporaries the poets Dylan Thomas and Vernon Watkins, and the composer Daniel Jones. In 1934, Dylan Thomas shared digs with Janes in London, where the artist was studying at the Royal Academy Schools. But Janes had discovered modernism, exhibiting in London alongside artists including Picasso, Miro, and Matisse, and he left the Academy. It is only now that the full scope of his considerable originality and achievement is being revealed.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1913830829
• ISBN13: 9781913830823
• Release Date: April 2027
• Publisher: Parthian
• Length: 180 Pages