Jones was also well know for her paintings of women. The artist had sex-reassignment surgery in the 1990's and has since been known as Jeffrey Catherine Jones. A documentary on that subject has been in the works.
The Studio, referenced above, was a New York loft Jones shared with Barry Windsor-Smith, Bernie Wrightson, and Mike Kaluta from 1975-1979. I've met both Bernie and Mike numerous times, and they're just great down-to-earth people. I've always been a little intimidated by Smith and Jones (never met either of them). The seemed be drawing much more on a fine art sensibility and seemed more intellectual about art and what they were trying to accomplish.
But having said that, I'd been friends with Jones on Facebook for the last year or so. She just seemed to really enjoy it, posting a couple times a day. Sometimes older work or even that mornings production. But what really killed me was she acted like your mom when she discovered the internet. She posted years old memes and those FAIL pictures of tipped over forklifts and shit. It was just funny, and very humanizing to see someone I considered a fine artist in every sense of the word posting LOL CATS on Facebook. posted by marxchivist at 7:24 PM on May 19, 2011 [7 favorites]
A wonderful artist. It sounds like much of her life must have been hard in ways I can't even really imagine. I hope she had found happiness, as it sounds like she did.
He drew women beautifully in I'm Age.
I hope he knew that. posted by the Real Dan at 11:11 PM on May 19, 2011
I remember some of this work, especially Idyl, from my youth. It holds up exceptionally well and it seems to me that there is a very well thought out grounding in art history in Jones' work. Languid and very reminiscent of Gustav Klimt in the portrayal of women.
I only saw her stuff now and then, never went chasing it down. Didn't know she transitioned. I can really sympathize with the couple of brief sentences Wikipedia sums up her life shortly after transition; it's a hell of a thing to have to go through. posted by egypturnash at 1:35 PM on May 20, 2011
Sorry to hear about this. Though I had my obsessions with Wrightson & Smith of the Studio gang, she was the true painter of the bunch. Helluva an illustrator.
Here's an appreciation of Jones written by Mike Netzer (Nassar) which does a pretty good job of articulating what made her art special. posted by marxchivist at 6:26 AM on May 21, 2011
posted by Artw at 6:58 PM on May 19, 2011