International Workers Mural
Tribute to Mike Jones : Mick Jones was one of the Workers Cooperative artists who painted the International Workers Mural that used to be displayed at the Transport and General Workers Union recuperation hotel for workers. The above are the first 3 panels of 14. The mural was 89 foot long. It was removed in 2014 when the Unite the Union owned hotel was rebranded for tourism (now The View Hotel)
Mick Jones Murals
Mick Jones – Queen’s Crescent Community Centre, 1978
Mick Jones – ‘History of the Labour Movement.
Mick Jones – ‘Fitzrovia’, 1980
Mick Jones – ‘Peasant’s Revolt’, 1981.
ney Peace Carnival’, 1984 / 1985
From Guardian article.
“Mick Jones was born in Bideford in Devon in 1944, son of Jack Jones, the trade union leader and International Brigade veteran, and Evelyn Jones, an active socialist. He grew up in Coventry, won a scholarship to Solihull School and from there went on aged sixteen to Birmingham Art school to study 3D design. He passed the National Diploma (NDD) in 1964, progressing to the Royal College of Art where he studied industrial design. For a period after leaving college, he worked at the BBC TV Centre constructing, designing and painting for TV, working in special effects as well as designing consumer goods and sign writing. In the 1970s Mick won bursaries to study sculpture in Yugoslavia and Czeckoslovakia and travelled widely to India, Mexico and Canada. He also acquired a teaching degree at Goldsmiths College and went on to teach printmaking at a London secondary school from 1973 to 76.
Mick was a prolific artist, with talents in all the visual arts. He drew and painted with huge skill, in an inimitable manner, persuasive and dramatic, making easel works, portraits, murals, silkscreen posters and banners. He also made sculptures and stained glass. His work was always infused with his passionate Socialist spirit, for and about people. He was a born leader of teams and took naturally to working in community arts, undertaking research, encouraging participation and talent.
Many of Mick’s murals were funded by government job creation schemes, targeting young people to give them confidence and skills. For a time he worked with Phil Hartigan and his ‘Fine Heart Squad’ making murals at Lismore Circus, before starting his own team – ‘The Artworkers Co-op’. In 1978 he organised the Camden Mural Project, training young people as painters to create art on housing estates, community centres and on the streets, including the Carlton Centre and the Kentish Town Health Centre. In Tower Hamlets he painted murals for the Abbey Road Centre, the Weaver’s Field Youth Centre and in Mile End ‘The Peasants Revolt’ with Ray Walker. He was an enthusiastic and inspiring teacher. One of his team said, “Working with youth in North Paddington – the best thing he ever did!” In 1980 the Fitzrovia Community Association commissioned a mural from the Art Workers Co-op for a very tall gable end in Tottenham Court Road in Camden, which Mick designed and carried out with Simon Barber. He recalled how he and Simon went about creating the artwork.
“It was done in close consultation with local people. We took inspiration from local life: the newsagents, workers, a butcher, builders, office workers, nurses, a pub and local school children all found their way into the composition. It’s a montage of scenes, all relevant to the area at the time: construction activities, the Post Office tower, TV screen advertising, Horace Cutler, leader of the GLC as a Dracula-like creature pointing at County Hall plans for sky-scrapers, a window-cleaner, office workers using computer-like machines to churn out bills and so on. The skyline reflects the speculative building of the time, the young boy hemmed in behind a fence is a comment on the lack of open spaces and amenities in the area. “We developed a kind of highly figurative, narrative cartoon style which contains humour and hopefully wit as a way of highlighting the themes and issues,” he said. They went at it quickly. “I worked on the top half, Simon the lower half. It had to be completed in five weeks”
Hackney Peace Carnival Mural
Besides the many banners Mick made for unions, there were other murals, notably a series for the Unite Centre in Eastbourne and the great ceiling mural for the Liverpool Trades Council Centre.
In 1983 Mike’s friend, the artist Ray Walker died, just as he was preparing to paint the mural he had designed for a site in Dalston. It was to be one of the ‘Peace Murals’ appearing in London – part of the Greater London Council’s ‘Peace Year’. Mick took on the task of organising and painting the mural with the assistance of Ray’s wife, Anna. A new design was developed from Ray’s sketch, and the work went ahead, the wall was rendered and prepared for painting in Keim Silicate paints. The mural has been a great success, depicting the Hackney Peace Carnival procession – with portraits of local people – marching noisily down the street beneath the Dalston Skyline. It was completed in 1985 and restored by Paul Butler and Linda Jane James in 2016. Mick died in 2012.”
From Mick Jones RIP Posted on October 11, 2012 by londonmuralpreservationsociety Fitzrovia Mural by Fitzrovia News
“Last month we were sad to learn that muralist Mick Jones had passed away. He was a person I only met once when we gathered in the Fitzrovia Neighbourhood Centre to talk about restoring the Fitzrovia mural which he worked on over thirty years ago.
Fitzrovia Mural
Sadly, I never got around to really finding out about his career painting murals and am hoping that in the future other people can let us know about his works. Since his passing there has been an obituary in the Guardian, Camden News Journal and in the Hackney Citizen. We have had a couple of email sent to us about Mick and have been allowed to share them with our readers. Greenwich Mural Workshop sent us this:
“We at Greenwich Mural Workshop were very sad to hear of the death of Mick Jones. He was a great colleague during the early years of the mural movement, always friendly and smiling, dedicated, knowledgeable and good to talk to. His murals were beautifully designed and thoughtful works, and his painting, especially of the Hackney peace mural completed for his friend Ray Walker, was just superb. A great man”.
Philip Hartigan street artist and coordinator and leader of the Fine Heart Squad 1969-79. Painted mural by the Fine Heart Squad, on a wall at the Lismore Circus estate in Gospel Oak, London, 1975.
Lismore Circus Estate Mural
Philip Hartigan wrote this:
“He had all the revolutionary background from his father’s world but he was a secret fellow a country boy really a dreamer . His work was a possessed kind of lyricism . I gave everyone in the squad the freedom to do their thing, and the editing was done in discussion in the pub . A very hot summer .
Mick Jones , the son of Jack Jones Union Leader . Came to work with the Fine Heart Squad on the Lismore Circus Murals in Kentish Town In the summer of 1975 . He discovered himself as a mural painter with all the courage and commitment, a young man could have. There were problems and punch ups and plots and counter plots he set up his own group and continued. He was completely sure that he was right and when street art and mural art met under the banner of community arts it was fireworks .
He was a Buddhist nonviolent man, and he was enraged by my decision to paint over some of the work he had done .He couldn’t accept the control of my chef d orchestra role and we had disputes . He tried to railroad the Fine Heart Squad but I liked him its part of the apprenticeship and that’s how I saw it. He was a privileged member of a revolutionary club . I will never forget his happiness when he realised what we in the Fine Heart Squad were doing . He worked like a man on fire . Bravo Mick Jones Bravo “
For Walls With Tongues Ray Walker – Peasants Revolt – 1981.
Address: Bow Common Lane, Mile End Fields, E3. Size: 15′ x 90′ Materials: PVA Artists and Emulsion paint colours onto brick. Theme: The commemoration of the 600th anniversary of the 1381 peasants uprising. Painted in just 6 weeks and backdrop of a commemorative festival. Painted by: Ray Walker. Mike Jones & Art Workers Co-op.
Thank you to Walls With Tongues
Artists
The Dream, The Rumour and The Poet’s Song – Gavin Jantjes & Tam Joseph, Brixton
Street Artworks – Tim Chalk & Paul Grime
Docklands Community Poster Project – Peter Dunn & Dr. Loraine Leeson
Greenwich Mural Workshop – Carol Kenna & Stephen Lobb
Brixton Peace Murals – Pauline Harding & Dale McCrea
Southall Mural – Dr. Chila Kumari Burman & Keith Piper
Islington Schools Education Project
Northern Ireland an essay by Professor Bill Rolston
Public Art Workshop – Desmond Rochfort & David Binnington Savage
Cable Street – David Binnington Savage, Desmond Rochford, Paul Butler, Ray Walker
The Yorkshire Artists Mural Group – Ramsay Burt & Graeme Willson
Brian Barnes, Wandsworth Mural Workshop
The For Walls With Tongues project has undertaken interviews with thirty-one artists known to have produced murals during the period between 1965 and 1985. This is just a sample of the artists we know to have been using the mural form during that period and is not intended to indicate a hierarchical worth to their work or that of others not included. The site will include a list of mural artists known to Greenwich Mural Workshop through contemporary conferences and Murals in London. We will add an indicative image where we have one of these artist’s work. If you have an image and would like to add it to the archive please get in touch.