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DAVID JONES (1866-1959) The Crucifixion, c. 1925 Boxwood Unique 25.4 x 9.7 x 2.6 cm (10 x 3 ¾ x 1 in) (including the base) Height of base 2.1 cm (1 in) Provenance with Anthony d'Offay, London Private collection, UK Thence by descent Private collection, UK Literature J. Miles and D. Shiel, David Jones, The Maker Unmade, Seren, Bridgend, 1995, pp. 80 and 297, cat no. 5 (Carvings), ill. b/w p. 80 Ede's discussions on religion with David Jones, who converted to Catholicism in 1921, were fundamental in shaping his understanding of the 'sacrament of the present moment'. 1 More than any other artist, Jones revealed to Ede: the symbolic, the ritualistic beauty of things in human usage. A teacup the cup of life, a window the Heavens opened, a boot the fragility of this flesh. If it was light it was the light that shineth in darkness. 2 Ede came to regard the next door St Peter's Church as of fundamental importance to Kettle's Yard: an 'emblem of the spirit which kept me alive and gave me courage'. 3 In 1957, he asked Hepworth about the possibility of making new block-printed fabric for the altar, a task that, sadly, proved impossible because of work commitments. 4 Jones had made in the 1920s, as well as the wood engravings that Ede so admired, a number of boxwood carvings that included a small, delicately rendered crucifix. Whether Ede knew of this work, or of a painted crucifix Jones made in 1925 for Eric Gill's chapel at Pigotts, High Wycombe, is not known. In 1959, however, Ede asked if Jones could help find him a crucifix. Jones promised to enquire, but added that, these days, it was about the most difficult thing to find. 5 1 Ede, A Way of Life, p.80. 2 Ede, 'Between Two Memories,' p.110, quoted in Fisher, p.122. 3 Ede, 'Letter from Jim Ede to an applicant for the post of Resident at Kettle's Yard', Kettle's Yard Archive, Papers of H.S. Ede, KY/EDE/uncatalogued (Ephemera 1), quoted in Fisher, p.120. 4 Barbara Hepworth, letters to H.S. Ede, 14 December 1957, 17 January 1958, Kettle's Yard Archive, KY/EDE/1/7 H.35.86–7. 5 David Jones, letter to Ede, 4 May 1959, Kettle's Yard Archive, KY/ EDE/1/8/1/103. 56