Tony Ray-Jones

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Tony Ray-Jones (Wells, Somerset, June 7, 1941 - London, March 13, 1972) was a British photographer.

Born Holroyd Anthony Ray-Jones, he was the youngest son of Raymond Ray-Jones (1886-1942), a painter and engraver who died when his son was only eight months old, and Effie Irene Pierce, who would work as a physiotherapist. After his father's death, Tony's mother took the family to Tonbridge, Little Barrow (near Chelmsford), and then Hampstead. He was educated at Christ's Hospital (Horsham), which he hated.^[1]

Tony Ray-Jones started his education at the London School of Printing, where he concentrated on graphic design. In the early 1960s he obtained a scholarship that enabled him to join Yale University School of Art on the strength of photographs he had taken in north Africa from a taxi window.^[2] Although only 19 on his arrival at Yale, Ray-Jones' talent was obvious, and in 1963 he was given assignments for the magazines Car and Driver and Saturday Evening Post.^[3]

Dissatisfied with commercial success, Ray-Jones went to the Design Lab held by the art director Alexey Brodovitch in the Manhattan studio of Richard Avedon; Brodovitch's gruff manner and high standards won respect and hard work from Ray-Jones and others.^[4] Ray-Jones also got to know a number of New York "street photographers", in particular Joel Meyerowitz, who influenced his later work.

Ray-Jones graduated from Yale in 1964 and photographed the United States energetically until his departure for Britain in late 1965. From then until 1970, he lived in Britain. On his arrival, he was shocked at the lack of interest in non-commercial photography, let alone in publication of book collections of it. He was also unsure of what subject he might pursue, but the idea of a survey of the English at leisure gradually took shape, and Ray-Jones was able to work on this and at the same time portrait and other work for the Radio Times, Sunday newspapers, and magazines.^[5] Ray-Jones tried to extensively document the way of life of the English "before it became too Americanised". His photographs of festivals and leisure activities are full of a somewhat surreal humour and show the influence of photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Garry Winogrand, Homer Sykes and Ray-Jones own collection of the work of Sir Benjamin Stone. Part of this work was published posthumously in his book A Day Off (1974).

Ray-Jones was both sociable and abrasive, introducing himself to the editor of Creative Camera by saying "Your magazine's shit" but nevertheless managing to impress, and also worked hard and successfully to have exhibitions of his works.^[6]

Tony Ray-Jones returned to the United States in January 1971 to work as a teacher at the San Francisco Art Institute — one of the few ways in which he could legally stay in the US. He disliked teaching, finding the students self-centered and lazy, but he was soon able to busy himself working on assignments for both the British and the US press.

In late 1971, Ray-Jones started to suffer from exhaustion. Early the next year leukaemia was diagnosed, and he started to have chemotherapy. Medical treatment in the US was too expensive, so Ray-Jones flew to London on 10 March and immediately entered the Royal Marsden Hospital; he died there on 13 March.

In 2004, a major retrospective show was held at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television (now the National Media Museum), in Bradford, England. A major retrospective book was also published in 2004: Tony Ray-Jones: A Key Figure of British Photography and the British Way of Life, Revealed Afresh.

[edit] Notes

^ Richard Ehrlich, "Introduction", Tony Ray-Jones (Manchester: Cornerhouse, 1990), 7.
^ Ehrlich, 8.
^ Ehrlich, 9.
^ Ehrlich, 10.
^ Ehrlich, 12–13.
^ Ehrlich, 14–15.