A talented Black artist who has made a huge impact on the lives of many other Black artists and art history was Lois Mailou Jones. She was as phenomenal with the paint brush as she was representing the race in her images and depictions. She was not only a prolific painter but also an influential educator, bridging cultural gaps and challenging stereotypes through her vibrant and diverse works. Jones was was born in Boston, Massachusetts on November 3, 1905. During her childhood, Jones' parents, who believed in the importance of creativity, encouraged her to draw and paint using watercolors. Her parents bought a house on Martha's Vineyard, where Jones met those who influenced her life and art, such composer Harry T. Burleigh, and novelist Dorothy West.
Jones held her first solo exhibition at the age of seventeen in Martha's Vineyard. There she met the sculptor Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, one of the first artists to use Black and African subjects positively, who encouraged her ambitions. Her main focus throughout school was perfecting her art skill. In her adolescent years in the early twentieth century, Jones was intrigued with art and desired to have a career in the art. Inspired by nature, Jones would paint watercolors of the island. Her parents, supportive of their daughter’s creativity, sent her to an arts high school, the Boston National School. She also studied drawing at the Boston Museum vocational drawing class in the afternoon and on Saturdays. There was also instruction from a teacher at the Rhode Island School of Design.
In 1923, she was awarded a four-year scholarship to the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts, where she faced racial challenges but persisted in pursuing her passion. From 1923 to 1927 she attended the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston taking extracurricular arts classes and studying design. She won the Nathaniel Thayer prize for design and earned her degree with honors in 1927. She also took night courses at the Boston Normal Art School and received a certificate. Right out of school, Jones began a successful career in the textile design industry. Jones won a scholarship for graduate study at Designers Art School in Boston and then became a free-lance designer.
Following Lois Mailou Jones' immediate career boom, she experienced two events that would shape her outlook on her career. The first was a visit to a design firm where Jones saw a print of hers, "Ganges", upholstered on their furniture. The head designer was so surprised that he called down all of his colleagues to look at this “colored girl” who had designed the Ganges fabric. This experience was an early wakeup call to Jones that her racial identity, whether she liked it or not, would impact her career. She also became aware of the limitations of the design world, namely its anonymity. This prompted Jones to leave textile design in favor of painting, hoping that high art would bring her name recognition.
Jones decided that teaching would would be a better career. However, when Jones approached her alma mater of the Museum School of Fine Arts, asking for a teaching position in fine art, they turned her down and instead suggested that she “go down South and help [her] people.” Rejected from her hometown, Jones did indeed head south. She began her teaching career at Palmer Memorial Institute in Sedalia, N.C. As she learned it was a prep school that catered primarily to the more elite African Americans. As a prep school teacher, Jones coached a basketball team, taught folk dancing, and played the piano for church services. Working and teaching in the South and enduring the discrimination did not appeal to her. After two years she left and took a position in the art department at Howard University, in 1930, which would be a nearly lifelong association.
Jones worked to prepare her students for a competitive career in the arts by inviting working designers and artists into her classroom for workshops. Along with her success in academia, Lois gained a wide following for her textile designs. From a number of friends and prominent personalities in the world of art and culture, she was convinced to devote more time to her painting, advice she acceded to and that would put her on the way to even greater artistic study and acclaim. While developing her work as an artist, Jones became an outstanding mentor and strong advocate for African-American art and artists. Jones enjoyed a successful teaching career and artistic success.
In 1934, while attending a summer session at Columbia University, she was exposed to the cultural life of Harlem. Influenced by the cultural production of Harlem Renaissance she began studying the African masks that would become central to her best-known works. In 1937 she received a fellowship to study in Paris at the Académie Julian. During one year's time she produced over 30 watercolors during her year in France. While living abroad, many of Jones’s works were inspired by the Luxembourg Gardens, art galleries, and cafes of Paris. Her most celebrated Parisian painting, “Les Fetiches,” was a depiction of African Masks. Much of Jones’s art reflects her travels to Africa and Haiti. Jones, however, credited France with giving her the freedom and stability she needed to flourish as an artist.
She returned to Howard University and began teaching watercolor painting. Her main source of inspiration was Céline Marie Tabary, also a painter, whom she worked with for many years. Alain Locke, a philosophy professor at Howard University and "Father of the Harlem Renaissance", encouraged Jones to paint her heritage. Her style shifted and evolved multiple times in response to influences in her life, especially her extensive travels. Lois Mailou Jones has treated an extraordinary range of subjects, from French, Haitian, and New England landscapes to the sources and issues of Black American culture. Her extensive travels throughout Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean influenced and changed how she painted. She felt that her greatest contribution to the art world was "proof of the talent of Black artists".
Her work reflected a varied styles form traditional landscapes to African theme abstractions. She was one of the few female artist during the Harlem Renaissance and her work is influenced by African tradition. Her work echoes her pride in her African roots and American ancestry. She often focused on themes of African heritage, pride, and unity, blending African illustrations and portraits with Western artistic techniques to create a unique visual language that celebrated Black culture. Jones work was different, brave and loud one could not ignore her voice. She was not just a great artist, as a Black woman her life was not easy, but she had the courage to fight for her rights as a human and expressed her world and point of view trough her paintings.
In 1953 Jones married the artist Louis Vergniaud Pierre-Noël of Haiti, and she came to know many of that nation’s artists. From this time she painted portraits and landscapes in brighter colors and with a more expressionistic style than she had previously employed. In 1955, Jones unveiled portraits of the Haitian president and his wife commissioned by U.S President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Jones's numerous oils and watercolors inspired by Haiti are probably her most widely known works. African influences reemerged in Jones’s art in the late 1960s and early ’70s, particularly after two extensive research tours of Africa. Her paintings became bold and abstract, and African design elements began to dominate. Their frequent trips to Haiti inspired and impacted Jones' art style significantly.
In 1968, Jones documented work and interviews of contemporary Haitian artists for Howard University's "The Black Visual Arts" research grant. On May 22, 1970, Jones took part in a national day of protest in Washington, D.C., that was created by Robert Morris in New York. They protested against racism and the Vietnam War. While many Washington, D.C., artists did not paint to be political or create their commentary on racial issues, Jones was greatly influenced by Africa and the Caribbean, which her art reflected. In 1973, Jones was awarded an honorary Doctor of Philosophy from Colorado State Christian College. Through her teaching, she influenced generations of young Black artists, encouraging them to explore and express their cultural heritage through art. Throughout her career, Jones has championed the international artistic achievement of African-American art.
She has also been an important role model for other Black artists, particularly those involved with her design and watercolor courses at Howard University from 1930 to 1977. She refused to be hindered by her race or gender, and thus obsessively managed her public persona. After retiring from Howard University in 1977, Jones continued to exhibit, paint, and travel. During her long career, Jones’s talent was recognized in many ways. She received several honorary doctorates from institutions like Massachusetts College of Art in Boston, The Atlanta College of Art, and Howard University, among others. Lois Mailou Jones' work is in museums worldwide and valued by collectors. Jones continued painting until her death in 1998, leaving behind a rich legacy of artistic achievements and contributions to art education. She broke boundaries by celebrating Black identity and heritage at a time when these themes were often marginalized.
