Background
Howard-Jones was born in Lambourn, Berkshire in 1903.
Howard-Jones was born in Lambourn, Berkshire in 1903.
Howard-Jones attended Street.Hilda"s School in Penarth and then the London Garden School.
In 1920 she went to the Slade School of Art in London, graduating four years later with a Fine Art Diploma that included distinctions in painting, wood engraving and design. Howard-Jones went to work for the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff, providing drawings of archaeological reconstructions for the published works of Sir Cyril Fox and Doctor Nash-Williams. In July 1942 Howard-Jones submitted 11 drawings to the War Artists" Advisory Committee which were not purchased and indeed were censored for the duration of the conflict.
She submitted further drawings in November 1942 and July 1943 which were purchased and led to a commission to produce paintings of the fortifications on the islands of Flat Holm and Steep Holm in the Bristol Channel.
Howard-Jones also painted scenes showing the preparations for Doctorate-Day taking place around Penarth and the Cardiff Docks. These paintings are now held by the Imperial War Museum and the National Army Museum.
In 1946 Howard-Jones spent some time in Scotland at the art school run by James Cowie at Hospitalfield House. In 1958 she was commissioned to design a mosaic for the headquarters of the Western Mail in Cardiff.
In 1965 she designed an mosaic altarpiece for the church of Marchmont Saint Giles in Edinburgh.
In 1959 she had her first full show at the Leicester Galleries in London. Over the next ten years she was to have five shows there. During the winter of 1963 she held a two-women show with Glenys Cour at the Attic Gallery in Swansea.In all her work featured in almost thirty solo shows in Britain and her work is represented in galleries in both Australia and the United States.
The Welsh Arts Council toured two retrospectives of her work, first in 1974 and again in 1983 and 1984.
The Rocket Press organised a life-time retrospective of her work in 1993, which Howard-Jones attended and included works she had produced in her late eighties. A volume of her poetry, Heart of the Rock: Poems by Ray Howard-Jones was published at the same time.