A self-taught painter born in Cardiff, Deborah Jones is best known for her imaginative shop front and trompe l'oeil artwork. During World War II, she worked as a capstan lathe operator and soon moved to London where she mixed with members of the International Ballet Company.
She became engrossed in the theatre, designing and painting sets, producing props and costumes for the Royal Opera House and worked as an assistant to the designer Oliver Messel. She designed for the Glyndebourne Opera, the Edinburgh Festival and for television and film including Richard II with Laurence Olivier. She worked with the Royal Shakespeare company at Stratford and also with Bernard Miles at London’s Mermaid Theatre. She had a season working at Stratford, and helped Bernard Miles start the Mermaid Theatre.
She has travelled widely, on business and pleasure, exhibiting work in Chicago, Positano, Italy and New York, where she exhibited her work in Greenwich Village in 1952. She was given a solo exhibition at Liberty’s of London in 1957 and has also regularly shown at the Florentine Gallery, Brighton, and held later exhibitions at Harrods, London, in 1994.
