.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Painted in 1986, Time Out belongs to a group of large-scale figure compositions that Jones worked on after producing a series of figurative sculptures. In these paintings, Jones used bright monochrome colours over a white ground and the subject matter often centred around groups of people socialising.
Andrew Lambirth comments, 'Jones is an adept of the social scene. A skilled and convivial guest, he plays host with generosity and aplomb. He loves to dine out (it is no coincidence that he has designed work for two of the most successful restaurants in London), go to parties and generally keep pace with modern urban society at play. As he puts it: 'I am almost exclusively involved with the figure and the way it is presented rather than with the anatomical reality or correctness of the human anatomy. And so theatre, any form of artifice, appeals to me. That's partly why I like going to smart restaurants in the evening. You get a whole range of humanity there ...' He is, of course, present not only as a participant but also as an observer. A large part of his raw material is drawn from the look and behaviour of people letting their hair down, and thereby revealing their innermost drives. An artist must be something of a psychologist if he is to paint the human figure successfully, and there is also something of the anthropologist in Jones as he stalks twenty-first-century man and woman in their native habitat' (see Allen Jones Works, London, 2005, p. 104).
Andrew Lambirth comments, 'Jones is an adept of the social scene. A skilled and convivial guest, he plays host with generosity and aplomb. He loves to dine out (it is no coincidence that he has designed work for two of the most successful restaurants in London), go to parties and generally keep pace with modern urban society at play. As he puts it: 'I am almost exclusively involved with the figure and the way it is presented rather than with the anatomical reality or correctness of the human anatomy. And so theatre, any form of artifice, appeals to me. That's partly why I like going to smart restaurants in the evening. You get a whole range of humanity there ...' He is, of course, present not only as a participant but also as an observer. A large part of his raw material is drawn from the look and behaviour of people letting their hair down, and thereby revealing their innermost drives. An artist must be something of a psychologist if he is to paint the human figure successfully, and there is also something of the anthropologist in Jones as he stalks twenty-first-century man and woman in their native habitat' (see Allen Jones Works, London, 2005, p. 104).