Ray Howard-Jones studied at the Slade School of Fine Art in London in the 1920s. She became famous at age 40 as a painter, after she had initially made only archaeological drawings for the National Museum of Wales. In World War II she was one of the few female war painters. After the war, she became known as a painter of Welsh landscapes, especially coastal and marine scenes in pastel tones. She also created mosaics and murals and published poetry. After 1949, Howard-Jones spent a great deal of time in Pembrokeshire on the tiny island of Skomer, alone or with the photographer Raymond Moore until they split up in 1971. She was a mass of contradictions, a very feminine woman who signed her works “Ray,” partly to disguise her gender.
Great Britain