LOIS MAILOU JONES

Lois Mailou Jones (1905 – 1998) was an artist and educator. She is often associated with the Harlem Renaissance.

Jones was born in Boston, Massachusetts. Her parents bought a house on Martha's Vineyard, where Jones met those who influenced her life and art, such as sculptor Meta Warrick Fuller, composer Harry T. Burleigh, and novelist Dorothy West.

After graduating from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, she received her graduate degree in design from the Design Art School of Boston in 1928. That summer, Jones attended Howard University, where she decided to focus on painting instead of design. She continued taking classes throughout her lifetime. Not long after graduating, Jones was recruited to join the art department at Howard University. She remained as professor of design and watercolor painting until her retirement in 1977. Alain Locke, a philosophy professor at Howard University and founder of the Harlem Renaissance, encouraged Jones to paint her heritage. Jones developed as an artist through visits and summers spent in Harlem during the onset of the Harlem Renaissance (New Negro Movement). Aaron Douglas became a great influence of hers.

In her works Negro Youth and Ascent of Ethiopia the influence of African masks are seen in the profiles of the faces. Influenced by her travels in Africa, the chiseled structures and shading renderings mimic three-dimensional masks that Jones studied. Jones would utilize this style throughout her career.

In 1937, Jones received a fellowship to study in Paris at the Académie Julian. Here she produced a number of watercolors and paintings, often utilizing the en plein air method of painting that she used throughout her career. Jones' Les Fétiches was instrumental in transitioning "Négritude”, a distinctly francophone artform, from the predominantly literary realm into the visual.
Jones exhibited at the Phillips Collection, Seattle Art Museum, National Academy of Design, the Barnett-Aden Gallery, Pennsylvania's Lincoln University, Howard University, galleries in New York, and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. In 1952, the book Loïs Mailou Jones: Peintures 1937–1951 was published. At the Barnett-Aden Gallery, Jones exhibited with a group of prominent black artists, such as Jacob Lawrence and Alma Thomas. These artists and others were known as the "Little Paris Group."

In 1954, Jones was a guest professor at Centre D'Art and Foyer des Artes Plastiques in Port-au-Prince, where the government invited her to paint Haitian people and landscapes. As a result, Jones was given the Diplôme et Décoration de l'Ordre National "Honneur et Mérite au Grade de Chevalier." These Haitian pieces are some of her most well-known works.
Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton collected one of her island seascapes while they were in the White House. In 1997, Jones' paintings were featured in an exhibition entitled Explorations in the City of Light: African-American Artists in Paris 1945–1965 that appeared at several museums throughout the country.

Her work can be found in the collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the Brooklyn Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Muscarelle Museum of Art, and The Phillips Collection.
She felt that her greatest contribution to the art world was "proof of the talent of black artists".