LONDON, ENGLAND.- The National Gallery presents today “Thomas Jones in Italy,” on view through 15 February 2004 at the Sunley Room. Admission is free. Supported by the Bernard Sunley Charitable Foundation. Welsh-born Thomas Jones (1742 - 1803) was one of the most innovative British artists of his day. His small oil-sketches, painted in Italy in the 1770s and ‘80s, are masterpieces of observation and concision, while Jones’s ‘Memoirs’ are the most complete and compelling records of an artist’s life at the time. 

Neither were known until about 50 years ago when their rediscovery led to the recognition that a major artistic personality had been all but forgotten. This exhibition includes about 70 works from public and private collections in Britain and abroad: informal oil-sketches, drawings and watercolours, painted in Rome and Naples and the surrounding countryside. Among them is the National Gallery’s ‘A Wall in Naples’ of about 1782, recognised as a masterpiece of the oil-sketch tradition. The Exhibition has been organised by the National Museums & Galleries of Wales in association with the National Gallery, London.