Faith, Hope and Love - Hardcover

Faith, Hope and Love, the first comprehensive examination of the life’s work of Edward Powis Jones, details a remarkable artistic journey that begins as an accomplished American painter living in Paris in the shadow of the Second World War and concludes as that of an exceptional and surprising photographer whose work has no precedent.

Jones employed all the disparate art mediums of his era and produced a life’s work that is startlingly cohesive. After developing a passion for printmaking, he produced sculptures in bronze, wax, plaster, and papier-mâché. By the time of his death in New York in 1998, Jones had been treating photographic emulsion as painter’s gesso for more than a decade and had become fascinated by the potential of the photocopier.

His enormous artistic output springs both from an abiding affection for his family and from a deep sense of loss, with roots in the early death of his parents. Beneath the surface of his work lies something disconcerting, if not menacing. Jones’ conversion to Catholicism is reflected in etchings of the Stations of the Cross and paintings depicting the Crucifixion. Yet despite the focus on mortality, especially his own, his work also displays great joy and humor.

His final pictures—including radical, large-scale painted photographs shot from a London hospital bed—show his ability to incorporate every aspect of his life into his unique artistic expression. Throughout his career, Edward Powis Jones maintained a highly personal, singular artistic vision that admitted no consideration of compromise and that will, with Faith, Hope and Love (its first publication), make a dynamic contribution to the social discourse.