Tony Ray-Jones (7 June 1941- 13 March 1972) was an influential British post-war photographer who is best remembered for his light-hearted, quirky images of the English social landscape. The documentation of his fellow countrymen engaged in various leisure activities embodied a uniquely distinctive vision; quite a departure from the objective style of the 1960s war photographer. Ray-Jones' subjective and artistic approach to photography subsequently influenced a new generation of independent photographers emerging in 1970s Britain including Martin Parr, Daniel Meadows, Chris Steele-Perkins, and Simon Roberts.
Ray-Jones was born in Wells, Somerset to a physiotherapist mother and the British artist Raymond Ray-Jones (whose etchings are included in the collection of the Victoria & Albert Museum). At the age of eight, Ray-Jones lost his father, forcing the family to rely on financial support from the Artist's Orphan Fund. Ray-Jones studied graphic design at the London School of Printing where he first encountered the work of Bill Brandt, whose brother taught at the school. In 1960, at the age of nineteen Ray-Jones won a two-year scholarship to the prestigious American university, Yale, after submitting a portfolio of photographs taken from the window of a taxicab in Algiers. He studied alongside Joseph Albers and obtained a MFA in graphic design working with colour. A chance encounter with Alexey Brodovitch, art director of Harper's Bazaar for two decades, steered Ray-Jones away from furthering a career in graphic design for advertising agencies. Brodovitch was teaching at the Design Laboratory in New York, held in the studio of Richard Avedon. Ray-Jones was a student from 1962-3; other students included Robert Frank, Art Kane, Irving Penn and Garry Winogrand.
Brodovitch would prove to be a lifelong friend and a mentor to Ray-Jones, who adopted his artistic approach. A brief stint as associate art director of Brodovitch's Sky magazine was followed by freelance photography work for publications such as Car and Driver and Saturday Evening Post. In 1966, he returned to England and began the project of recording the English at leisure whilst supporting himself through more commercial assignments from The Sunday Times Magazine and others. Between 1966-68, Ray-Jones travelled around England in a VW camper van, capturing the customs and eccentricities of the British people; holidays in seaside towns, beauty pagaents, parades and other social events. His work was first exhibited in 1969 at the Institute for Contemporary Art in London which also featured the work of Dorothy Bohm, Don McCullin and Enzo Ragazzini. In fact, Ray-Jones was the first contemporary British photographer to have a one-man touring exhibition. However, economic difficulties demanded less attention be paid to personal projects, and Ray-Jones concentrated on commercial assignments. In 1971 he returned to the United States with his wife Anna after accepting a teaching position at the San Francisco Art Institute. He began to plan several new personal projects, including the plight of the American Indian, but was diagnosed with leukemia in 1972. Three days after returning to England to be treated at the Royal Marsden Hospital, Tony Ray-Jones died, aged thiry-one.
Although his photographic career spanned just over a decade, Tony Ray-Jones produced a richly diverse body of work that celebrated the melodramatic nature of the human character- synthesizing a personalized mélange of compassion, curiosity and irony. As he explained to Creative Camera in 1968:
I have tried to show the sadness and the humour in a gentle madness that prevails in a people. The situations are sometimes ambiguous and unreal, and the juxtaposition of elements seemingly unrelated, and the people are real. This, I hope helps to create a feeling of fantasy. Photography can be a mirror and reflect life as it is, but I also think that perhaps it is possible to walk, like Alice, though a Looking-Glass, and find another kind of world with the camera.