Tess Jaray
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Tess Jaray (born 1937) is a British painter and printmaker. She taught at The Slade School of Fine Art, UCL from 1968 until 1999. Over the last twenty years Jaray has completed a succession of major public art projects. She was made an Honorary Fellow of
RIBA ''Riba'' (, or , ) is an Arabic word used in Islamic law and roughly translated as " usury": unjust, exploitative gains made in trade or business. ''Riba'' is mentioned and condemned in several different verses in the Qur'an3:130
(Royal Institute for British Architects) in 1995 and a
Royal Academician The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House in Piccadilly London, England. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its ...
in 2010.


Early life

Born in Vienna in 1937, Jaray grew up in rural
Worcestershire Worcestershire ( , ; written abbreviation: Worcs) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Shropshire, Staffordshire, and the West Midlands (county), West ...
, England, where her parents emigrated in 1938 after the
annexation of Austria The (, or , ), also known as the (, ), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany") arose after the 1871 unifica ...
by
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
made it unsafe for people of
Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...
descent to live there. Jaray's father Franz Ferdinand Jaray was a chemical engineer and industrial inventor. Her mother, Pauline Arndt, attended Art School in Vienna. Jaray's great aunt was the gallerist Lea Bondi Jaray who was responsible for bringing many of the German Expressionists to London. Noting the influence of
Gustav Klimt Gustav Klimt (14 July 1862 – 6 February 1918) was an Austrian symbolist painter and a founding member of the Vienna Secession movement. His work helped define the Art Nouveau style in Europe. Klimt is known for his paintings, murals, sket ...
, leader of the Vienna Secessionists, Jaray has written that ‘He was one of the very first artists I learned about as a teenager.’


Travel, education and influence

Jaray studied at the
Saint Martins School of Art Saint Martin's School of Art was an art school, art college in London, England. It offered foundation and degree level courses. It was established in 1854, initially under the aegis of the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields. Saint Martin's beca ...
and the
Slade School of Fine Art The UCL Slade School of Fine Art (informally The Slade) is the art school of University College London (UCL) and is based in London, England. It has been ranked as the UK's top art and design educational institution. The school is organised as ...
. With a guaranteed place at the Slade she took time out to travel to Paris where she stayed at no.16 Rue des Cannettes in the hotel run by
Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust ( ; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, literary critic, and essayist who wrote the novel (in French – translated in English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'' and more r ...
's former housekeeper,
Céleste Albaret Céleste Albaret ( Gineste; 17 May 1891 – 25 April 1984) was a country woman who moved to Paris in 1913 when she married the taxi driver Odilon Albaret; she is best known for being the writer and essayist Marcel Proust's housekeeper and secre ...
. In Paris Jaray made several formative relationships including with fellow hotel guest Valli Myers and the Slovenian painter
Zoran Mušič Zoran Mušič (12 February 1909 – 25 May 2005), baptised as Anton Zoran Musič, was a Slovene painter, printmaker, and draughtsman. He was the only painter of Slovene descent who managed to establish himself in the elite cultural circles of ...
. After five months Jaray returned to London to attend the Slade. At that time
William Coldstream Sir William Menzies Coldstream, CBE (28 February 1908 – 18 February 1987) was an English realist painter and a long-standing art teacher. Biography Coldstream was born at Belford, Northumberland, in northern England, the second son of co ...
was Professor of Painting and the art historian E.H. Gombrich was in his last year as Professor of Art History. Both messianic figures influenced the young artist's thinking. In the few years following art school Jaray was awarded two traveling scholarships. In 1960 she received the Abbey Minor Traveling Scholarship to Italy. Here Jaray experienced for the first time the impact of Italian Architecture, as well as the art she had gone there to see. The following year in 1961 she received the French Government Scholarship, which allowed her to return to France to live and work for some months. While in Paris she worked in the etching studio of
Stanley William Hayter Stanley William Hayter (27 December 1901 – 4 May 1988) was an English painter and master printmaker associated in the 1930s with surrealism and from 1940 onward with abstract expressionism. Regarded as one of the most significant printmakers ...
at
Atelier 17 Atelier 17 was an art school and studio that was influential in the teaching and promotion of printmaking in the 20th century. Originally located in Paris, the studio relocated to New York City during the years surrounding World War II. It moved ...
.


Technique and teaching

The impact of Renaissance architectural spaces Jaray encountered on her travels in Italy were formative for the development of her distinctive technique. In these ceilings she saw how simple lines interacted to transform space, powerfully inducing emotional responses. Writing on Jaray's paintings of the 60s
Jasia Reichardt Jasia Reichardt (born Janina Chaykin; 13 November 1933) is a British art critic, curator, art gallery director, teacher and prolific writer, specialist in the emergence of computer art. In 1968 she was curator of the landmark ''Cybernetic Serendi ...
said they could be called '"ceiling geography" because they suggest views of an interior seen from below... Her paintings suggest some underlying mystery through the suggestion of architectural perspective.' Much of her career as a painter has been spent investigating the quality of effects geometry, pattern, repetition and colour have on space. The patterns she creates evoke spatial ambiguities and shifting structures which work on the viewer's perceptions in subtle ways. According to the critic Terry Pitts, her work ‘sense(s) the way in which history of decoration and patterning is embedded with elemental human experiences and impulses’. At this time of significant development, in 1964 Jaray began teaching. For four years she taught at
Hornsey College of Art Hornsey College of Art, also known as HCA, founded in 1880 as the Hornsey School of Arts, was an art school in Crouch End, part of Hornsey, Middlesex, England. From 1965 it was in the London Borough of Haringey. From 1955 to 1973, when it was me ...
, before becoming the first female teacher at the Slade in 1968. In 1999 Jaray became Reader Emeritus in Fine Art at the Slade.


Public commissions

Between 1985 and 2000 Jaray devoted much of her time to working on public commissions, applying her understanding of architectural space and pattern to large-scale projects in public spaces. Her significant work of the eighties was a terrazzo pattern design for London Victoria train station. In the nineties she completed further large-scale public projects including paving, lamps and railings in
Centenary Square Centenary Square is a public square on the north side of Broad Street in Birmingham, England, named in 1989 to commemorate the centenary of Birmingham achieving city status. The square is used as a staging area for many of the city's main cul ...
, Birmingham (torn up in 2018); Wakefield Cathedral Precinct; Jubilee Square at Leeds General Infirmary; and the forecourt for the new British Embassy in Moscow.


Public collections

*
Abbot Hall Art Gallery Abbot Hall Art Gallery is an art gallery in Kendal, England. Abbot Hall was built in 1759 by Colonel George Wilson, the second son of Daniel Wilson of Dallam Tower, a large house and country estate nearby. It was built on the site of the old A ...
, Kendal, UK *
Arts Council Collection The Arts Council Collection is a national loan collection of modern and contemporary British art. It was founded in 1946. The collection continues to acquire works each year. The Arts Council Collection reaches its audience through loans to publ ...
, London, UK *
Art Gallery of Western Australia The Art Gallery of Western Australia (AGWA) is a public art gallery that is part of the Perth Cultural Centre, in Perth. It is located near the Western Australian Museum and State Library of Western Australia and is supported and managed by the ...
, Perth, Australia *
British Council The British Council is a British organisation specialising in international cultural and educational opportunities. It works in over 100 countries: promoting a wider knowledge of the United Kingdom and the English language (and the Welsh lang ...
, London, UK *
British Museum The British Museum is a Museum, public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is the largest in the world. It documents the story of human cu ...
, London, UK *
Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...
*
Contemporary Art Society The Contemporary Art Society (CAS) is an independent charity that champions the collecting of outstanding contemporary art and craft for UK museum collections. Since its founding in 1910 the organisation has donated over 10,000 works to museum ...
, London, UK *
Fogg Art Museum The Harvard Art Museums are part of Harvard University and comprise three museums: the Fogg Museum (established in 1895), the Busch-Reisinger Museum (established in 1903), and the Arthur M. Sackler Museum (established in 1985), and four research ...
, Harvard University, MA, US *
Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts The Sainsbury Centre is an art museum located on the campus of the University of East Anglia, Norwich, England. As part of its relaunch in 2023 under new executive director, Jago Cooper, the Sainsbury Centre became the first museum in the wor ...
, Norwich, UK *
The Tate Tate is an institution that houses, in a network of four art galleries, the United Kingdom's national collection of British art, and international modern and contemporary art. It is not a government institution, but its main sponsor is the UK ...
, London, UK *
Victoria and Albert Museum The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen ...
, London, UK *
University of Warwick The University of Warwick ( ; abbreviated as ''Warw.'' in post-nominal letters) is a public research university on the outskirts of Coventry between the West Midlands and Warwickshire, England. The university was founded in 1965 as part of ...
Art Collection, Coventry, UK *
Walker Art Gallery The Walker Art Gallery is an art gallery in Liverpool, which houses one of the largest art collections in England outside London. It is part of the National Museums Liverpool group. History The Walker Art Gallery's collection dates from 1819 ...
, Liverpool, UK


Exhibitions

Jaray's work was included in the 2021 exhibition ''
Women in Abstraction Women in Abstraction. Another History of Abstraction in the 20th Century or ''Elles font l'abstraction. Une autre histoire de l'abstraction au XXe siècle'' was a major exhibition of 20th century abstract art created by women. It was curated by ...
'' at the
Centre Pompidou The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the (), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English and colloquially as Beaubourg, is a building complex in Paris, France. It was designed in the style of high-tech architecture by the architectural team of ...
.


Writing

Throughout her career Jaray has used writing as a way to reflect upon her work. However, from the mid-nineties Jaray started increasingly to write about other artists’ work. Several of these pieces have appeared as catalogue essays for exhibitions and on
BBC Radio 3 BBC Radio 3 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It replaced the BBC Third Programme in 1967 and broadcasts classical music and opera, with jazz, world music, Radio drama, drama, High culture, culture and the arts ...
's The Essay. In 2001 Jaray collaborated with the German writer
W.G. Sebald Winfried Georg Sebald (18 May 1944 – 14 December 2001), known as W. G. Sebald or (as he preferred) Max Sebald, was a German writer and academic. At the time of his death at the age of 57, he was according to ''The New Yorker'' ”widely recog ...
to realise an exhibition and book. FROM THE RINGS OF SATURN AND VERTIGO at Purdy Hicks Gallery, London presented sixteen pairings of Jaray's visual response to fragments from Sebald's novels ''
The Rings of Saturn ''The Rings of Saturn'' ( - An English Pilgrimage) is a 1995 novel by the German writer W. G. Sebald. Its first-person narrative arc is the account by a nameless narrator (who resembles the author in typical Sebaldian fashion) on a walking tour ...
'' and ''Vertigo''. Later that year twenty-three of the writer's micropoems were brought together with Jaray's paintings in For Years Now. It was published by Short Books in London shortly before Sebald's death in December that year. A selection of Jaray's essays and reflections on art and life were collected in Painting: Mysteries & Confessions published in 2010 by Lenz Books. In 1995 Jaray was made Honorary Fellow of the RIBA (Royal Institute for British Architects) for her contribution to urban design. In 2010 Jaray was elected Royal Academician. She lives and works in London.


Publications

*2003, Mel Gooding, ''Tess Jaray's New Paintings'', catalogue essay for exhibition at Purdy Hicks Gallery, London. *2005 Kim Williams and Judith Flagg Moran, ''Urban Space and Pavements: The work of the Cosmati, Carlo Scarpa and Tess Jaray'', Lettera Matematice 55. Also published in ''Mathematics and Culture'', ed. Michele Emmer, publisher Springe. *2007, Oliver Bennett, ''Surface Tension'', Landscape, 06/01/07. *2008, Tess Jaray, Jeongae Im, ''Art price'' no 6 vol 56 *2009, ''Contemporary Crafts''. English Case Study, Birmingham Imogen Racz, published by Berg Publishers. *2010, 'Painting: Mysteries and Confessions', Review, Times Literary Supplement, 02/05/10, Nancy Campbell. *2010, Brian Sewell, 10.06.10, ''Oh, no...'', Evening Standard, London. *2010, Marius Granger: Tess Jaray, Catalogue Introduction for ''Layers'', Seongnam Cultural Foundation, Korea. *2014, ''The Art of Tess Jaray''. London, UK: Ridinghouse. *2016, ''Desire Lines: The Public Art of Tess Jaray''. London, UK: Ridinghouse. *2010, ''Painting: Mysteries and Confessions''. UK: Lenz Books.


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Jaray, Tess 1937 births Living people 20th-century British painters 21st-century British painters Academics of the Slade School of Fine Art Alumni of Saint Martin's School of Art Alumni of the Slade School of Fine Art Artists from Worcestershire Fellows of the Royal Institute of British Architects Austrian emigrants to the United Kingdom Royal Academicians 20th-century British printmakers