THE UNSOPHISTICATED ARTS. Drawn and Described by Barbara Jones

Architectural Press, 1951-01-01. Hardcover. Good/Missing. Architectural Press [Published Date: 1951]. Hardcover, 192 pp. First Edition. In good condition/ NO dust jacket. Blue cloth covered boards with gold lettering on spine. Light bumping to edges of covers and light overall scuffing scuffing and soiling with a bit of the color scuffed off along edges. Binding tight. Pages lightly aged but otherwise unmarked. The only part of the dust jacket left are the two jacket flaps, which are laid-in. NOT Ex-Library. NO remainder marks. A solid copy without the dust jacket. Over 100 photos and illustrations, 12 of which are colour or partly-coloured. During the 1940s Barbara Jones set about documenting this everyday popular art (traditional/folk art) throughout Britain, visiting fairgrounds, tattoo parlours, taxidermists, narrow boats, high street shops, seaside piers, roundabouts, waxworks, gravestone carving, cake decoration and amusement arcades, celebrating objects of everyday life finding beauty in unexpected places. Her journey was an epic undertaking and her achievement remains groundbreaking. [From front jacket flap] WHAT IS UNSOPHISTICATED ART, the vernacular art of England? Barbara Jones has made it her pleasure to seek and find it, describe and explain it, draw it and photograph it in many places, likely and unlikely, for many years past: it is the art of the fairground showman, the painter of canal boats, the week-end bungalow owner, the toy maker, the wedding cake baker. The range of her search is best shown by a short list from the book's thirteen chapters: Taxidermy, Seaside, Tattooing, Toys, Festivals . . .