Julian Campbell regards the work of Thomas Alfred Jones, whose watercolours of women deserve renewed attention
Thomas Alfred Jones was a prominent figure in the Irish art establishment in the second half of the 19th century. He was a prolific artist and the foremost portraitist of public figures, exhibiting at the Royal Hibernian Academy for over fifty years, being elected its president and being awarded a knighthood. His portraits of dignitaries are conventional, yet his oeuvre is more varied than may initially appear: he painted genre scenes and landscapes, and women in the West of Ireland. His brilliant watercolours of beautiful women express a personal, romantic side of his character.
Isabella Evangelisti visits the MAC in Belfast, where the work of selected painting graduates from Belfast School of Art is on show
