Last month, we published the Colin Jones Collection to our archives catalogue.
Colin Jones (1936-2021) was a self-taught photographer and photojournalist, born in East London into a working class family. He began practising photography whilst touring as a dancer in the Royal Ballet before committing fulltime as a photojournalist for the Observer and the Sunday Times Magazine. Throughout his career, Jones was particularly interested in documenting working lives and historically marginalised groups both in post-war Britain and across the globe.
The Colin Jones Collection held at the ASCC consists of an incomplete set of 71 photographic prints that relate to three particular projects by Jones. We have arranged the catalogue in accordance with these projects: Grafters (CJ/1), The Who (CJ/2) and ‘The Black House’ (CJ/3). The prints were produced for an exhibition held at London College of Communication in 2007 and deposited by the curator to the ASCC following the exhibition. They were formally donated to UAL by Colin Jones in 2020.
The recently published Colin Jones Collection catalogue builds off earlier work by Carla, who volunteered with the ASCC in 2018. During her volunteer placement, Carla created an initial listing of material which quantified the total number of items, determined their titles and reported on the physical condition of the prints. Since our initial acquisition of material, we have also de-framed, repackaged and digitised the physical prints to support their long-term preservation and access.
Last term, students on the MA Culture, Criticism and Curation (MA CCC) at Central Saint Martins completed a digital curatorial project based on the Colin Jones Collection series controversially titled ‘The Black House’ (CJ/3). ‘The Black House’ is the title historically (mis)assigned to a collection of photographs that Jones took of people living in and around Harambee House, a community project developed and run by Caribbean migrant Herman Edwards. With support from ASCC archivist Georgina Orgill, MA CCC students used photographs from the Collection as a starting point and informed their work through self-led archival research at the George Padmore Institute. Their resulting project, “Re-entering Harambee House,” forms a compelling critique of our existing understandings around Jones’ photographic series and the history of Harambee House.
We are excited to enhance availability to the Colin Jones Collection via our archives catalogue. The Collection will be of particular interest to researchers of documentary photography, photojournalism, portrait photography, media ethics, social history and pop culture.
If you have any questions about accessing the Colin Jones Collection, please contact us at archive-enquiries@arts.ac.uk.