Tess Jaray

The impact of Renaissance architectural spaces Jaray encountered on her travels in Italy were formative for the development of her distinctive technique. In these ceilings she saw how simple lines interacted to transform space, powerfully inducing emotional responses. Writing on Jaray's paintings of the 1960s Jasia Reichardt said they could be called ceiling geography' because they suggest views of an interior seen from below... Her paintings suggest some underlying mystery through the suggestion of architectural perspective". Much of her career as a painter has been spent investigating the quality of effects geometry, pattern, repetition and colour have on space. The patterns she creates evoke spatial ambiguities and shifting structures which work on the viewer's perceptions in subtle ways. According to the critic Terry Pitts, her work "sense(s) the way in which history of decoration and patterning is embedded with elemental human experiences and impulses". At this time of significant development, in 1964 Jaray began teaching. For four years she taught at Hornsey College of Art, before becoming the first female teacher at the Slade in 1968. Jaray became Reader Emeritus in Fine Art at the Slade.

• 2003, Mel Gooding, Tess Jaray's New Paintings, catalogue essay for exhibition at Purdy Hicks Gallery, London. • 2005 Kim Williams and Judith Flagg Moran, Urban Space and Pavements: The work of the Cosmati, Carlo Scarpa and Tess Jaray, Lettera Matematice 55. Also published in Mathematics and Culture, ed. Michele Emmer, publisher Springe. • 2007, Oliver Bennett, Surface Tension, Landscape, 06/01/07. • 2008, Tess Jaray, Jeongae Im, Art price no 6 vol 56 • 2009, Contemporary Crafts. English Case Study, Birmingham Imogen Racz, published by Berg Publishers. • 2010, 'Painting: Mysteries and Confessions', Review, Times Literary Supplement, 02/05/10, Nancy Campbell. • 2010, Brian Sewell, 10.06.10, Oh, no..., Evening Standard, London. • 2010, Marius Granger: Tess Jaray, Catalogue Introduction for Layers, Seongnam Cultural Foundation, Korea. • 2014, The Art of Tess Jaray. London, UK: Ridinghouse. • 2016, Desire Lines: The Public Art of Tess Jaray. London, UK: Ridinghouse. • 2010, Painting: Mysteries and Confessions. UK: Lenz Books.

Jaray studied at the Saint Martins School of Art and the Slade School of Fine Art. With a guaranteed place at the Slade she took time out to travel to Paris where she stayed at no.16 Rue des Cannettes in the hotel run by Marcel Proust's former housekeeper, Céleste Albaret. In Paris Jaray made several formative relationships including with fellow hotel guest Valli Myers and the Slovenian painter Zoran Mušič. After five months Jaray returned to London to attend the Slade. At that time William Coldstream was Professor of Painting and the art historian E.H. Gombrich was in his last year as Professor of Art History. Both messianic figures influenced the young artist's thinking. In the few years following art school Jaray was awarded two traveling scholarships. In 1960 she received the Abbey Minor Traveling Scholarship to Italy. Here Jaray experienced for the first time the impact of Italian Architecture, as well as the art she had gone there to see. The following year in 1961 she received the French Government Scholarship, which allowed her to return to France to live and work for some months. While in Paris she worked in the etching studio of Stanley William Hayter at Atelier 17.

• Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, UK • Arts Council Collection, London, UK • Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth, Australia • British Council, London, UK • British Museum, London, UK • Brooklyn Museum • Contemporary Art Society, London, UK • Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, MA, US • Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts, Norwich, UK • Sheffield Museums, Sheffield, UK, • The Tate, London, UK • Victoria and Albert Museum, London, UK • University of Warwick Art Collection, Coventry, UK • Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK

In 1995, Jaray was made Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute for British Architects (RIBA) in recognition of her public art commissions. In 2010, Jaray was elected a Royal Academician. In 2017, Norwich University of the Arts awarded her an honorary degree in recognition of her outstanding achievements in fine art and art education. In 2025, the University of the Arts London awarded her an honorary doctorate.