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Dimensions: 183 by 152.5cm.; 72 by 60in.
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Provenance: Heland Wetterling Gallery, Stockholm
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Notes: In the mid 1980s, Jones returned to painting having spent the early years of the decade primarily focussed on three dimensional work. He began a new series of large, multifigured compositions which took the theme of the party as their subject; I felt that such a big painting should represent a big subject, suitable for our time. The Party seemed the best excuse I could find for organising a lot of figures on a big canvas. (Jones, quoted in Andrew Lambirth, Allen Jones Works, Royal Academy of Art, London 2005, p.113). Together with works such as Harmony (1984, Private Collection) and Swing (1984, Private Collection), In the 20th Century perfectly encapsulates this aim for a 'big painting' and is peopled by exuberent characters energetically engaged with each other within a boldly coloured interior.
The specific focus on the relationship between male and female characters was to become a recurring theme in his work from the period. The complex dialectic between the two genders was also reinforced by his exploration of the dialogue between the artist and his muse, represented in the present work by the pianist and the model posing by the piano. He later explained that 'in the throes of creative activity the artist is the instrument, the muse inseparable from the music' (Jones, ibid., p.81). The focus on this particular relationship is prophetic of Jones's oeuvre in the 1990s where the multifigured compositions of the 1980s gave way to an emphasis on two specific protagonists, the Artist and his Muse.
