Anthony Edward Jones (born 1944) is a Welsh arts administrator, art school leader, art educator, and sculptor, who has had various postings in the UK and the US, leading the Glasgow School of Art, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Royal College of Art in London, and the Kansas City Art Institute.

Life

Jones was born in 1944 and grew up in Penygraigwen, a small Welsh hamlet on the island of Anglesey; his family is from the nearby area of Mynydd Bodafon. He also lived in the Welsh town of Merthyr Tydfil. He studied at Goldsmiths College and the Newport School of Art.Glasgow School of Art, The History. Hugh Ferguson. Foulis Press. 1995. He then attended Tulane University in New Orleans on a Fulbright Scholarship graduating with a Master of Fine Arts (MFA).

He went on to teach sculpture at the Glasgow School of Art in the 1970s before becoming its Director (1980–1986), only the second sculptor to hold that role, after James Gray in the 1930s. He became a recognised authority on 19th and 20th century art history, particularly on Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Archibald Knox.

Jones joined the Art Institute of Chicago in 1986 as Chancellor and led the School of the Art Institute of Chicago as president twice: first from 1986 to 1992, and again from 1997 until 2008. During his first residency, he married the American photographer . Between the two terms at Chicago, he served as Director of the Royal College of Art in London from 1992 to 1996, resigning before the end of his five-year contract due to his son's long-term illness. From 2014 until his retirement in 2022, he was President of the Kansas City Art Institute. He has published several books and essays and hosted three BBC TV series, including Painting the Dragon (2000) about artists in Wales. His book Welsh Chapels (1984; revised 1996), about the history of the architecture of nonconformist chapels in Wales, has been described by the Chapels Heritage Society as the standard history of this subject.

Honours He received a CBE in the 2003 New Year Honours for services to the promotion of British art in the USA. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and holds several honorary doctorates. Jones Hall, a residence hall at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, is named after him.

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