Shirley Jones pictured during her exhibition at ‘The Hours’ in 2014

Born in the Rhondda Valley, Artist, Printmaker and Poet Shirley Jones has for the past twenty five years lived and worked near Brecon. After teaching English in London for seven years, she attended courses in lithography, etching and sculpture before being accepted for the postgraduate printmaking course at Croydon College of Art and Design, where she published her first two Artist books. This set Shirley off on a life-long creative odyssey that now sees her work in private and public collections the world over.

After setting up her own studio in 1977 Shirley produced a further 25 Artist books in which her etchings and mezzotints complement her poems, prose-pieces and translations from Old English and Old Welsh. Each of the books is a total concept with the choice of paper and typeface, the unity of text and image, and the harmony of the binding all as carefully considered as the visual and literary creativity involved.

Shirley's work has received worldwide critical acclaim and is collected by over 90 major public institutions and private collectors in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Ireland, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, South Africa and Austria. Twenty five solo exhibitions of her work have taken place in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; the National Museum and Art Gallery, Cardiff; a Twenty Year Retrospective in the Gregynog Gallery of the National Library of Wales; a Twenty Five Year Retrospective at Newport Art Gallery and Museum; St. David’s Hall, Cardiff; and the Ceri Richards Gallery, Swansea as well as in 10 rare book libraries and galleries in the United States.

'Mezzotint and the Artist's Book...' will be Shirley's final book. We hope you will join us for this celebration of a truly remarkable woman and uniquely gifted Artist.