Click or tap either of the images for the two ‘rooms’ of the Stone inscriptions gallery.
From the outset of his career, Jonah realised that he would not be able to make a living from creative art alone. For this reason he needed to study not only the techniques of stone carving, but also fine letter-cutting. He understood that there existed a clientele which “abhorred monumental mason lettering, and wanted something classical, dignified and beautiful, because an inscription can be a work of art, or it can be a horror”.
Jonah learned the skills of letter-cutting during a short six-week apprenticeship in early 1950 at Eric Gill’s old workshop at Pigotts in Buckinghamshire. His tutor was Lawrence Cribb, Gill’s favourite assistant (Gill himself had died some ten years earlier). Cribb would in turn become Jonah’s assistant some ten years later.
Letter-cutting provided a kind of bedrock for Jonah’s independent career as an artist-craftsman. Over half a century his workshop produced a steady flow of fine inscriptions for sites all over Wales and England (and occasionally beyond), some of them prestigious projects. He also applied the technique of inscribing stone to make images, as well as carving reliefs.
Photographs: Stephen Brayne (Text inscriptions), Mike Bunting (Image inscriptions).