In 1970, at his one man show at Arthur Tooth and Sons, London, Allen Jones exhibited a group of three new sculptures; scantily clad, curvaceous women, who were placed in various positions in the role of furniture. Collectively, ‘Hatstand’, ‘Table’ and ‘Chair’, all produced in 1969, represent the artist’s most radical statement and his name has since become synonymous with these iconic works.

This is one of Allen Jones’ working drawings for the third of the sculptures, ‘Chair’. Graphic in style, the drawing shows a woman lying flat on her back, her upturned legs providing the base of a seat. Its style is reflective of the artist’s new approach to painting during the late sixties – his earlier painterly brushstrokes have been replaced with a more stylized, and linear, approach to form. In this untitled drawing, Jones envisages his radical concept for the first time. The figure would most likely have been drawn from memory, rather than from a model, but the drawing shows more care than would be required for a mere technical drawing. In the reflective and translucent qualities of the glass and the gentle fading out of the figure’s hands Jones suggests something more subtle about how his sculpture might look and feel. Jones hired a professional sculptor, Dick Beech of Gems Wax Models who worked directly from his drawings, producing clay figures under the artist’s direction. By employing a professional model maker, he aimed to create a series of sculptures ‘without fine art marks, devoid of fine art clothing’.

When the first work, ‘Hatstand’, a standing figure, was finished Jones realized that it might be construed as a bizarre window mannequin and so he decided to develop the figure so that it would not appear to be just a decorative object. He did this by giving the other two sculptures a more obvious function, that of being a table and a chair, so that the viewer's expectation of what could be considered ‘fine art’ would be questioned.

These sculptures were, even in 1970 at the end of a decade of sexual revolution, hugely controversial. Collectively they were criticised for revelling in the exploitation, fetishization and domestic servility of women and they placed Jones at the centre of violent feminist debate both at the time and still today. In 1986 ‘Chair’ was on view at the Tate Gallery, London, as part of the exhibition ‘Forty Years of Modern Art, 1945-85’. It was attacked on International Women’s Day by feminists armed with acid, melting the face, and nearly two years passed before it was reconstructed.

Despite this attack, Jones continued to assert his links with feminism stating that he has ‘always thought that the tenets of feminism seem to represent an exemplary code of behaviour.’1 He maintains that these works are a celebration of women, but beyond this they are important as works of art. Jones’ art is primarily concerned with questioning the way that we view things, and the human figure has provided a potent source of imagery for this intent. As he explained, ‘because these three sculptures of women are recognisably representational, it is less obvious that the sculpture is not about being naturalistic. They are not so much about representing woman but the experience of woman, not an illusion’.

1 Andrew Lambirth, Allen Jones, Works, Royal Academy of Arts, 2005, p.28