Charles Jones (photographer)

For other people named Charles Jones, see Charles Jones (disambiguation).

Charles Harry Jones (1866- 15 November 1959) was an English gardener and photographer, noted for his still lifes of fruit and vegetables.

Born in Wolverhampton, Charles Jones became a gardener working on a number of private estates in England from the 1890s. His gardening was noted for the quality of his flowerbeds and cultivation of fruits and vegetables. As a photographer, Jones was noted for his documentation of the fruits of his gardening labours. Jones also offered his services as a photographer to other gardeners.

His work was never exhibited in his lifetime and was largely unknown, even to his family, until it was discovered by accident in a suitcase, along with hundreds of other images of vegetables, fruits and flowers, in 1981 at Bermondsey antiques market by Sean Sexton. Since Sexton's discovery the collection has slowly been dispersed by him through auction and by other means. It has been collected by institutions and private collectors and exhibited at The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the Musée de Elysée, Lausanne and at other venues. A monograph The Plant Kingdoms of Charles Jones was published in 1998.

Jones' work shares a spare, objective aesthetic with the photographers Karl Blossfeldt, Wilson Addison Bentley, Josef Sudek and Edward Weston.

Bibliography

• The Plant kingdoms of Charles Jones Sean Sexton and Robert Flynn Johnson Thames and Hudson, 1998. ISBN 0-500-54222-8

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Name	Jones, Charles
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Date of birth	1866
Place of birth
Date of death	15 November 1959
Place of death