Allen Jones – reviews of Royal Academy survey exhibition

What you need to know

A major survey show of the work of controversial British Pop artist Allen Jones is showing at the Royal Academy of Arts, London. Jones came to prominence in the 1960s and is best known for his sculptures, including his controversial erotic 'furniture' sculptures using female forms, fetish and S&M imagery.

This exhibition surveys Jones' work from the 1960s to the present day, tracing his key themes such as the female form, advertising and city life. It includes the notorious Hat Stand, Table and Chair, works, as well as fibreglass and steel sculptures, paintings and storyboards. Runs until 25 January.

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What the critics like

Despite the notoriety surrounding Jones' sculptures of naked women, we should cherish the danger, and perversity in his work, says Richard Dorment in the Daily Telegraph. This show also reveals "colour-drenched paintings of overwhelming sensuality, psychological acuity and visual intelligence" and sculptures that offer endless pleasure in exploring their intricate, unfathomable construction.

The furniture pieces are still brutally arresting, but set against his other work, "it is impossible to conceive of Jones as having one single view of women, in which they are objectified", says Zoe Williams in The Guardian. His eerie and entrancing painted metal sculptures of couples folding in on each other, for example, collapse the distinction between genders.

The furore over his fetishistic furniture has eclipsed the fact that, as this exhibition shows, that Jones is "a superb draughtsman and subtle painter", says Sarah Kent on the Arts Desk. Here we find glorious forays into spatial ambiguity and exquisitely subtle explorations of painting's ability to be vaporous or hard-edged, illusionistic or flat, abstract or figurative.

What they don't like

"If only he had stopped upon completing his notorious trio of furniture pieces in 1969", says Rachel Campbell-Johnston in The Times. Instead, he overlabours the argument, with updates such as a male deckchair and a glitter corseted Kate Moss, which add nothing and eventually subside into what feels like "a capitulation to the facile attractions of soft porn".