Carroll N. Jones III

Portrait Of A Little Girl by Carroll Jones III (1968)--First commissioned portrait

Church Window by Carroll Jones III (1975) First significant work post-portrait period.

Carroll Jones III was born on July 2, 1944, in Palm Springs, California, at Torney General Hospital.[1] Lucy Peck Jones, nee Barnes and Carroll Nathaniel Jones Jr. lived in the former El Mirador Hotel, taken over by the army in WWII.[2] His father was a second lieutenant in the Army Medical Corp and was stationed there as the hospital art director assigned to surgery.[3] The elder Jones worked in Medical illustration for the Army during World War II,[4][5][6] and later an illustrator for Life magazine and the Saturday Evening Post.[7] His mother was the daughter of Blakeslee Barnes IV, a NYC chemical engineer and inventor.[8][9] His parents met at the Yale School of Art in NYC. Jones' childhood was spent in New Providence, New Jersey, along with his younger sister, Jocelyn.[4] His summers he spent in New Hampshire to be with his Welsh grandfather, Carroll Jones, who deeply influenced his love of the natural.[10][11] Jones makes this bonding that took place with the land and people of New Hampshire apparent in the self-quote he uses to explain his work, Simple Gifts:

"Fortunately, at some point in my childhood, I began to gain an appreciation for the simpler belongings of life. I think now, a field trip to the McCarter Theater in Princeton, New Jersey, when I was 16, helped crystallize all the things I held so dear to my heart; that is, today, the core of my artistic sensibilities. The play was Our Town, which takes place in the fictitious town of Grover's Corners, New Hampshire, a town not unlike the one where I spent so much of my early years. The fictional town, and West Swanzey, New Hampshire, the actual town, were both in the shadow of Mount Monadnock, an old gentle mountain that I have climbed many times. The soul of both towns, to me, is the essential spirituality behind all the images I have painted. It just can't help but be."[12]

Carroll learned his disciplined approach to art from his father, Carroll N. Jones Jr. He taught young Carroll the ways of the masters from the 16th century Renaissance in theories of light, shade, perspective, color, and composition.[13] Carroll Jones III attended the Phoenix School of Design in NYC, and the Hartford Art School in West Hartford, Connecticut. Following his education, he supported himself for ten years doing commissioned penciled portraits, capturing the sensitive details of his subjects.[14] The Chatham Press described him in 1976, shortly before a change to the architectural drawings and oil paintings he came to be known for: "In a time when the discord of the avant-garde seems to prevail, Carroll, an artist of exacting self criticism, has resigned himself to defend a refined conception of beauty. His work is quiet and reflective and invites introspection. His style is his own..."[15]

Carroll moved to Hoboken, New Jersey, to establish himself as an artist in 1977, and no longer drew portraits, moving from graphite drawings to concentrate on oil paintings.[14] His first major show was among 121 New Jersey Artists at the Newark Museum and his work, Church Window, was singled out in an article from the New York Times in 1977.[16] Within a year he held a solo show at the Newark Museum.[17] By 1980, with over 300 pieces of work, Jones' work was represented in universities, galleries and collections in seven states, including the Forbes Collection.[18] Coe Kerr Gallery of NYC represented him and his work, as well as American Realist Andrew Wyeth.[19][20] He was a part of American Painters--Realists to Abstraction shows at Whistler's Daughter Art Gallery in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, in 1984.[21] He received recognition with artists Norman Rockwell and Andrew Wyeth in Douglas Albert Gallery's show of The School of American Realism in 1987.[22] Carroll began his gallery after moving to Jersey City in 1992. His studio has been there ever since.[23][24][25]

As the artist has grown older, Jones seldom travels for his work. He no longer takes trips to Vermont to take pictures of old time storefronts that are quickly disappearing. He doesn't like to paint modern buildings, or the picturesque Manhattan skyline he can view across the Hudson. He likes to look at New York, but he doesn't want to paint it, as he told reporter Ray Smith of the Hudson Reporter.[10] Instead, as Marion Filler, art critic of the Daily Record (Morristown) of Morris County, New Jersey has described, he has chosen to be the "keeper of time's flame...his manipulation of light on the remaining old facades of the early 20th century Hudson County has become a trademark."[25]

Jones' father, grandfather, uncle, and great uncle on his father's side were artists.[4] Carroll names the contemporary realist painter Edward Hopper as one of his major influences because he had loved seeing the Hoboken storefronts riding the trains and buses home from school in NYC as a child. Hopper painted similar storefronts, and other common features of everyday life.[10]

Art critic David L. Shirey of the New York Times noted Jones' first major work, Church Window at a juried art show at the Newark Museum "beautifully balanced composition of subtle dark and light tonalities."[16]

"He tends to use a dark palette, defining by light instead of lines, and uses detail to draw the observer in. Not surprisingly, underlying each depiction of reality there appears to be a sense of Surrealism." wrote Amy Roestostovsky of the Daily Caller of Pennsylvania State University.[22]

Marion Filler wrote the introduction to Jones' catalog, Jones III, published in 2013. She uses the words Magic realism, which refer to a style begun in America by Hopper in the 1920s.[26][27]

"No matter the subject, the quality remains first rate.Jones did gorgeous things with graphite. The requisite realism that was so necessary for capturing a likeness was extended and developed into an ethereal, magic realism that focused on selective parts of an architectural composition.His drawing seems to carve objects out of light and dark, bringing them out of the whiteness of the page with startling authenticity then allowing them to mysteriously dissolve into the void."[12]

Paul Froiland, editor of Midwest Art magazine, in his pictorial essay of Jones' work used the artist's own words to show his intentions, his desire to reach the common man:

"Years ago, a young black man who looked at his painting Another August said, “It looks just like a candy store I used to go to as a child in upper New York. I can feel the place, that's the exact same door that I walked through.” Jones notes, “And then I felt like I was a success. I felt that's who I want to reach, that's exactly what I am about.”[28]

Another August by Carroll Jones III