Ben Uri Research Unit

for the study and digital recording of the Jewish, Refugee and wide Immigrant contribution to British visual culture since 1900.


Tess Jaray artist

Tess Jaray was born on 31 December 1937 in Vienna, Austria, into a family of Jewish descent. Following the Anschluss in 1938, the family fled to Britain, where Jaray attended St Martin's School of Art (1954–57) and the Slade School of Fine Art (1957–60), returning to teach at the Slade for some thirty years (1968–99). Her paintings and graphic artworks explore the geometry of pattern, repetition and colour within her surroundings from a painterly perspective.

Born: 1937 Vienna, Austria

Year of Migration to the UK: 1938

Other name/s: Tess Jaray RA


Biography

Artist Tess Jaray was born on 31 December 1937 in Vienna, Austria, into a family of Jewish descent. Her father, Franz Ferdinand Jaray, was a chemical engineer and industrial inventor, and her mother Pauli Jaray (née Arndt) studied at the Vienna School of Art; Jaray's great aunt was gallerist Lea Bondi Jaray, co-founder with fellow émigré Otto Brill of St George's Gallery in Mayfair, London. Following the Anschluss (the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany) in 1938, the family fled to Britain, when Jaray was nine months old, settling in rural Worcestershire. Jaray attended St. Martin's School of Art in London from 1954–57, and the Slade School of Fine Art between 1957 and 1960. On graduating, she received the Abbey Minor Traveling Scholarship to Italy, where for the first time she was exposed to examples of Italian classical architecture, which would later greatly influence her work. A year later she received the French Government Scholarship, which financed her travels through France. While in Paris, she worked in the etching studio of Stanley William Hayter at Atelier 17. Afterwards, in London, she taught at Hornsey College of Art between 1964 and 1968, and, then for some 30 years at the Slade (1968–99).

For more than five decades, Jaray has explored the geometry of pattern, repetition and colour within her surroundings from a painterly perspective. In her paintings and graphic artworks (ranging from etchings to woodcuts), she focuses on producing the illusion of space, using perspective to create a field of spatial paradox. In many of her works the area of pattern is contained by a strong, grounding background colour controlling the movement of the forms. In 1984 Jaray completed a commission for a floor design for Victoria Railway Station in London, utilising the rhythmic patterning of geometric units from her paintings. Subsequently, she undertook a number of further public commissions in the late 1980s and 1990s, with the influence of Islamic art and architecture that is present in all her work becoming more obvious in her use of abstract shapes and patterns. These include the paving, lamps and railings in Centenary Square, Birmingham (torn up in 2018); Wakefield Cathedral Precinct; Jubilee Square at Leeds General Infirmary and the forecourt for the new British Embassy in Moscow.

Jaray had her first exhibition of paintings at the shortlived avant-garde, Polish-run Grabowski Gallery in London in 1963, showing alongside her husband, British artist Marc Vaux; since then she has regularly exhibited in the UK and abroad. Her early solo exhibitions include the Whitechapel Gallery, London in 1973, the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester in 1984, and the Serpentine Gallery in 1988. Most recently, her work has been shown at The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham (2019), Keeper's House at the Royal Academy of Arts (2019), Exile gallery, Berlin and Vienna (2018), Marlborough Fine Art, London (2017) and Djanogly Art Gallery at the University of Nottingham (2014). In 2001 Jaray collaborated with the late German-born writer W. G. Sebald on the exhibition From the Rings of Saturn and Vertigo, held at Purdy Hicks Gallery, London, pairing 16 of Jaray's visual responses alongside fragments from Sebald's eponymous novels. She was made an Honorary Fellow of RIBA in 1995 and a Royal Academician in 2010. The same year she published a book of her collected writings, Painting: Mysteries and Confessions. She has also written a book entitled The Blue Cupboard, in which she discusses her family's roots in Vienna and their escape to Britain. A monograph exploring Jaray's contemporary influence on abstract painting, The Art of Tess Jaray, was published in 2014 by Ridinghouse. Jaray's work is held in multiple public collections, including the Arts Council, British Museum, Government Art Collection, Royal Academy of Arts, Tate and Victoria and Albert Museum. Jaray is represented by Karsten Schubert in London; she currently lives and works in London near King's Cross.

Related books

  • Rachel Spence, Shadows of the Masters, FT Weekend, Life and Arts, 13–14 February, 2021, p. 14
  • Julia Beaumont-Jones, A Century of Prints in Britain (London: Hayward Publishing, 2017)
  • Tess Jaray: Into Light (London: Marlborough Fine Art, 2017)
  • Tess Jaray: The Light Surrounded (New York: Albertz Benda, 2017)
  • Charles Darwent, Desire Lines: The Public Art of Tess Jaray (London: Ridinghouse, 2016)
  • Tess Jaray, The Blue Cupboard: Inspirations and Recollections (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2014)
  • Alison Wilding, John Stezaker, Richard Dave and Doro Globus, The Art of Tess Jaray (London: Ridinghouse, 2014)
  • Megan Piper, Sandra Higgins and Sam Cornish, New Possibilities: Abstract Paintings from Seventies (London: Piper Gallery, 2012)
  • Richard Davey, Tess Jaray Thresholds (London: Royal Academy of Arts, 2012)
  • Tess Jaray, Painting: Mysteries and Confessions (London: Lenz, 2010)
  • Tess Jaray, 'A Mystery and a Confession', Irish Pages Vol. 1, No. 2, 2002, pp. 137-139
  • Tess Jaray, 'Art and Buildings', Architectural Review, Vol. 188, No. 1126, 1990, pp. 66-67
  • Richard Cork and Robin Vousden, Tess Jaray: Paintings and Drawings from the Eighties (London: Serpentine Gallery, 1988)
  • Tess Jaray: Prints and Drawings 1964–1984 (Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 1984)
  • Tess Jaray: Ten Paintings, 1980–1984 (Manchester: Whitworth Art Gallery, University of Manchester, 1984)
  • Marc Vaux, Recent paintings, Tess Jaray (London: Whitechapel Art Gallery, 1973)
  • Tess Jaray (London: Axiom Gallery, 1969)
  • Tess Jaray Paintings (London: Hamilton Galleries, 1965)

Public collections

Related organisations

  • St Martin's School of Art (student)
  • Slade School of Fine Art (student and staff member)
  • Royal Academy (academician)
  • Hornsey College of Art (staff member)
  • RIBA (Honorary Fellow)

Related web links

Selected exhibitions

  • Tess Jaray, Marc Straus, New York (2019)
  • Tess Jaray: East of the West, Exile, Vienna (2019)
  • Tess Jaray: From Outside, The Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham (2019)
  • Tess Jaray: Paintings, Keeper's House, Royal Academy of Arts (2019)
  • Tess Jaray: Aleppo, Exile, Berlin (2018)
  • Tess Jaray, Sotheby's S|2, London (in collaboration with Karsten Schubert, London) (2017)
  • Tess Jaray: Into Light, Marlborough Fine Art, London (2017)
  • Tess Jaray: The Light Surrounded, Albertz Benda Gallery, New York (2017)
  • Extra Terrestrial: Tess Jaray and Alison Wilding, East GalleryNUA, Norwich (2016)
  • Tess Jaray: Dark and Light, Megan Piper, London (2016)
  • Landscapes of Space: Paintings and Prints by Tess Jaray, Djanogly Art Gallery, Lakeside Art Centre, University of Nottingham (2014)
  • Drawings: Mel Bochner, Robert Holyhead, Ann-Marie James, Tess Jaray, Bridget Riley, Alison Wilding, Karsten Schubert, London (2013)
  • New Possibilities: Abstract Paintings from Seventies, Piper Gallery, London (2012)
  • Tess Jaray: Mapping the Unseeable, Piper Gallery, London (2012)
  • The Rise of Women Artists, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (2009): Lyon & Turnbull, London (2008)
  • Tess Jaray: New Paintings, Purdy Hicks Gallery, London (2003)
  • Tess Jaray: Prints 1966–2001, Clifford Chance, London (2001)
  • Purdy Hicks Gallery, London (2000)
  • Prints, Todd Gallery, London (1993)
  • Tess Jaray: Paintings and Drawings from the Eighties, Serpentine Gallery, London (1988)
  • Tess Jaray: Prints & Drawings 1964–1984, Ashmolean Museum, Oxford (1984)
  • Tess Jaray: Ten Paintings, 1980–84, Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester (1984)
  • Adelaide Festival Centre, Adelaide, Australia (1980)
  • Angela Flowers Gallery, London (1976)
  • Recent paintings, Tess Jaray, Marc Vaux, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1973)
  • 7 aus London: Rose Finn-Kelcey, Tess Jaray, Alan Charlton, Noel Forster, John Latham, Bob Law, Tom Phillips, Kunsthalle Bern, Bern, Switzerland (1973)
  • Tess Jaray: Paintings and Prints, 1967–1972, Graves Art Gallery, Sheffield and City Art gallery, Bristol (1972)
  • Tess Jaray: Recent Paintings, Axiom Gallery, London (1969)
  • Tess Jaray: Paintings, Hamilton Galleries, London (1967)
  • Formen der Farbe – Shapes of Colour: Josef Albers, Max Bill, Tess Jaray, Kunsthalle Bern, Bern, Switzerland (1967)
  • Tess Jaray: Paintings, Hamilton Galleries, London (1965)
  • Tess Jaray and Marc Vaux, Grabowski Gallery, London (1963)
  • Painting Towards Environment: Malcolm Hughes, Tess Jaray, Michael Kidner and Michael Tyzack, Bear Lane Gallery, Oxford (1963)
Ben Uri archive

Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Tess Jaray]

Ben Uri library

Publications related to [Tess Jaray] in the Ben Uri Library