Artist Jane Joseph – London Landscapes  

Jane Joseph taught drawing and painting at Morley for over 40 years. Since 1966 Jane has lived in West London. Jane’s beautiful work captures the spirit of London’s urban landscapes.

Jane Joseph studied at Camberwell School of Art and Crafts. She has had a number of solo exhibitions in London; her work is represented in the collections of the Arts Council of Wales, the Government Art Collection, The British Museum, the Yale Centre for British Art, and the Ashmolean, Oxford, amongst others. Morley is proud to own three of Jane’s artworks in its permanent collection.

Morley spoke to Jane Joseph about how she created her striking London landscapes.     

Jane, how do you decide what makes a good scene to capture? What qualities do you look for? 

I find subjects through walking and looking. If I’m interested in something I consider the light and the time of day that I should study it. I first make pencil drawings in a sketchbook.

It may take several visits to get the information I need to make a large charcoal drawing.  I hope that I have developed a personal language in the work. 

One of the outstanding qualities of your pictures is a sense of movement. How do you achieve this?

I try to express movement by showing moving elements in the subject, figures in movement, the movement of water in a river, a change of tide, the weather, the sky, birds or planes in the sky and by the use of formal elements in drawing.

Why have you chosen to London as a subject for your pictures?

I chose to live in London, the capital city of this country, and familiarity of place is crucial to me.  Many of my pictures are immediately near where I live.  St. Charles Hospital, Wormwood Scrubs and Little Wormwood Scrubs (I mean the heath of Wormwood Scrubs not the prison.) The Thames in West London, especially Hammersmith, Brentford and Kew, I have drawn in different locations for different reasons. 

What do like most about London?  

The familiarity of it through living there, all the ingredients that make a city including our great collections of Art and museums.

How would you describe your London studio?

I have always had my studio where I live. I thought if had to travel to reach my studio I might never get there. I have a studio, office, a smaller studio with high table, a store-room, a bedroom and a kitchen. The studio was made by knocking the two main rooms on the first floor into one. There is a large window at either end, a table made from a flat door, a workbench, two smaller tables. three stools of different heights, a high chair, a swivel chair, a wicker chair, an ordinary sitting chair, two old kitchen trolleys, two painting easels, a large wooden box with  hinged lid.

You’ve passed on your artistic skills at many students at Morley. What are your memories of teaching at Morley?

I taught at the highest level I knew how on a Wednesday, a two and a half  hour session both  morning and afternoon. The emphasis was on looking. In the winter months we worked in the studio D11, for most of which I hired a model, the same one for three consecutive Wednesdays.

In warmer and lighter months I took the class out, to locations of interest which most students could easily reach –  stations, Holland Park, the South Bank, the Festival Hall for view of the Thames. I also took the class occasionally to the National Gallery or the Tate to look at the work of Masters.

The students were mostly highly educated professional people,   teachers, musicians, a well-known opera-singer,  occasionally an ex-art student would join especially for drawing because this wasn’t taught in many art-schools.  Students were encouraged to work standing at an easel. I hoped to be able to draw for some of the session and my drawing would always be visible.   

When working in studio D11 there would be often be a thunderous banging sound coming from the Print studio immediately above making the building seem to shake – I always felt reassured by this particular reminder of the printmaking activity upstairs.

Listen to Jane Joseph on the Morley Gallery podcast!