From helping in his father’s antiques business to owning his own gallery has taken Paul Jones on a journey via the London club scene in the early sixties and the very first Glastonbury, to pioneering the sale of Afghan coats on the King’s Road and scenic painting for opera houses, West End theatre and rock tours. He now runs one of the buzziest little galleries in London – and discovered street artist Adam Neate. Angela Meredith meets the man at the helm of Elms Lesters Painting Rooms.
Paul Jones is standing in the middle of his gallery wearing a red velvet smoking jacket and looking happy.
It is the private view of the exhibition Small, Medium, Large at Elms Lesters Painting Rooms – the London gallery he founded 23 years ago.
Speaking to him prior to the opening, he is puzzled as to why I am sitting in his gallery on a chilly morning with my microphone pointing in his direction. Paul Jones is not used to being the star attraction – and has spent most of his life, as he puts it, “a bit before his time”.
During his life, however, whenever there was “a happening”, Paul more often than not got there before everyone else, but rarely got the credit.
“I was always a bit too early in my planning,“ he muses, as he wanders about the gallery inspecting new works by artists such as Ron English, Futura, Dalek, Mark Dean Veca – and the gallery’s own protégé Adam Neate.
This time, however, Paul has hit the target spot on by recognising the potential of street art as a movement and bringing it out of the cold into his own gallery. As a result, Adam Neate sold out at his first solo show in August.
It has not always been about money, though.
Paul admits he has fought hard to fulfil his dream of owning his own art gallery – and it is only in the last five years that things have looked up. The building was derelict when he bought it and he describes it as “a monster” – because it is listed, there is work to be done every week.
But the scenic painting supported his efforts to carry on – and included work for English National Opera and La Scala in Milan, as well as rock bands such as Iron Maiden and the musical The Lion King.
The studios today are more likely to play host to visiting artists such as New York’s Phil Frost, who spent six weeks there preparing his canvases for Small, Medium, Large.
Paul was born in south London. As boy, he helped in the family’s antique business – but dropping a piano on his finger at the age of eight convinced him that antiques were perhaps not for him.
He admits to spending much of his life diversifying and pursuing a love of music. He recalls being at the very first Glastonbury, “sitting in a tepee with Hawkwind”. (He can’t remember much else about the festival, but still listens to Hawkwind.)
Before that he was a mod with a scooter and went to the very first club – or ‘discotheque’– to open in London on Wardour Street.
But he always dreamed of owning his own gallery and a life spent as an entrepreneur was crucial in his development as a gallerist.
At first, he could only afford to show works on paper, but soon tired of prints, he says, because they did not “talk” to him.
The turning point for the gallery’s fortunes came when organising a shoot for Nike, featuring a poster to appear on a hoarding in Manchester. A friend recommended a “cocky sixteen-year-old” graffiti artist to do the artwork.
“He came in, we pointed him at a wall with his spray can and he covered it and did a fantastic job.”
The young artist was Andrew McAttee and the experience convinced Paul that street art was the direction painting was going in. He asked to see his portfolio and struck by the rawness of the work compared with the exhibits he had been dealing with till then.
His hunch and hard work have paid dividends. Street art is flying off the walls at Elms Lesters and into the homes of a diverse group of collectors.
“It’s for everyone,“ says Paul. “We have plumbers from south London to ladies who lunch. And kids who have friends in LA, who come in because they have been discussing street art online and know all the artists and their work.”
He is a great champion of youth, having had a great time in his youth himself.
His response to the suggestion that nowadays society is more fractured, people are more unfriendly, the streets are meaner, youth is out of control – is pragmatic.
“It’s their time,” he says. “I’ve had my time – we’ve all had our time. Let them have theirs. It’s their time to do things. And things are different now. People are more diverse, society is more diverse.
He feels that art has become fashionable again. Parents are also investing in painters such as Ron English and Phil Frost (the latter painting away in the upper gallery as we speak) for their children – and are more savvy at recognising the start of a movement and getting in before everyone else. He likes the idea of a new generation of art buyers – some as young as eighteen – feeling enthusiastic about painting.
“That’s why I’m in this world,“ he says.
“I’ve always been interested in art. But when I was at school, I realised that in my class there were three people better than me at painting and what chance did I stand?
“But if I could paint, I wouldn’t have a gallery. I think being a painter is one of the nicest things you could possibly do. You’re contained. But unfortunately, there are only about ten painters per decade.”
Music and art, he thinks, are always hand in glove – but any suggestion that movements are less organic and more commercialised these days is countered by the opinion that people are sharper, information is more widely available and people can pick up on new things more quickly.
“I’ve always liked that seed thing – that’s what interests me. There are not really many people who can think the seed up: they can see it once it’s there, but they can’t think it up. Thinking it up is the clever bit.
“And things now change every five years instead of every ten, because everything is much quicker,” he says.
So what is changing in street art?
“People are looking away from stencillers to painters,” he says – and cites his youngest artist, Australian painter Anthony Lister, who is 24.
“Pop art means popular art – everyone forgets that. With this art, you look at it and you like it. It’s not, ‘What’s the meaning of life?’ or anything.
“But at each stage of the gallery’s development, the quality of the work has just got better and better,” he says. “The quality of the painting is what’s coming through now.”
And he is confident of the future of Elms Lesters.
“I do think I’m going to leave a legacy of what went on here with this movement.
“I always did feel it, but I don’t think I ever thought I would be successful and I kept plodding along.
“But I’ve always been involved in the arts in some shape or form: whether music, or just rehearsing with a band, or art. Just underground stuff. My life has been totally underground.
“I do what I like, I’ve always done what I like. If I dislike what I’m doing, I stop doing it.”
Small, Medium, Large runs at Elms Lesters Painting Rooms until November 10.
From November 16 to December 1 the gallery will present Mind Over Matter: Images of Pink Floyd by Storm Thorgerson, which will celebrate the 40th anniversary of Pink Floyd and “the unique relationship” between the band and artist.
Sources:
elmslesters.co.uk/exhibitions/exhs24_dontdothat.html
eyestorm.com/artists/profile/Andrew_McAttee.html
