On the Road: Parking Markings
An artist’s book by Allen Jones
Allen Jones RA’s 52-page book On the Road: Parking Markings takes the reader on a graphic visual journey… by road.
“Since roads were first bisected by a white line, a pictorial language has evolved that, in classic parlance, is the first or Primitive phase in ever-developing visual vocabulary,” says Jones. “Parking markings were introduced during my final years as a student. Produced with stencils, these marks are enlivened by human error and chance.
“Because of increasing traffic during the 1960s a change was needed. Yellow represented a new and Classical phase, telling us what we should NOT do,” the artist continues. “Familiarity breeds contempt and by the 1990s the problem required desperate measures. Red, the colour of danger, anger and hell marked a third, Baroque phase in the developing language of road marking.
“During the 1950s we were asked politely – in white. During the 1960s we were told – in yellow. During the 1990s we were shouted at – in red. Now the air – is blue.”
Jones was elected a Royal Academician in 1986. He is one of Britain’s most distinguished artists from the pioneering Pop Movement, whose paintings and sculptures are held in many important international collections, including: Tate Gallery and the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington DC, the Museum of 20th-Century Art in Vienna, the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne, the Moderna Museet in Stockholm and the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam.
On the Road: Parking Markings is one of a collection of four artist’s books by Allen Jones that Black Dog Press is releasing in September 2022.
A pioneer of the Pop Movement, Jones’s many accolades include representing the UK at the Paris Biennale in 1963, where he received the Prix des Jeunes Artistes, and being elected a Royal Academician in 1986.
There have been several prominent solo exhibitions of his work over the past 55 years, including: the 1978–79 painting and sculpture retrospective of his work at the Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool and the Serpentine Gallery, London; the 1995 retrospective of his complete graphic works at the Barbican Art Gallery in London, which for three years toured the world under the auspices of the British Council; and the 2007–8 shows where Jones’s work was exhibited simultaneously at Tate Britain and The Royal Academy of Arts.
To mark the artist’s 75th birthday in 2012, a large, restrospective exhibition entitled Off the Wall, featuring sculptures, paintings, prints and drawings, toured through Europe, going on to tour venues in South America in 2015. In addition, a 2014–15 Royal Academy of Arts retrospective presented his work on thematic lines.
Alongside his paintings and sculptures, which are held by many of the world’s most revered art institutions, Jones has worked on large-scale commissions for a host of prestigious organisations and architects. These include mural projects in Basle, Zurich and London, and monumental sculptures in London, Hong Kong, Shanghai and China for the likes of Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, Yuzi Paradise Sculpture Park and Allen & Overy.
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