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December Issue
2009
Mint Museum
of Art in Charlotte, NC, Features Works by Loïs Mailou Jones
The Mint Museum of Art
in Charlotte, NC, is presenting, Loïs Mailou Jones: A
Life in Vibrant Color, a retrospective exhibition which surveys
seven decades of innovation, on view through Feb. 27, 2010.
The work of Loïs Mailou Jones (1905-1998), a pioneering 20th
century African-American artist, will be featured in this retrospective
which surveys the artist's 70-year career, stretching from the
late Harlem Renaissance to her contemporary synthesis of African,
Caribbean and American iconography.
The exhibition features more than 70 works from the artist's estate as well as from public and private collections, and includes paintings, sketches and textile designs. Synthesizing a myriad of influences and encounters over her lifetime, Jones's oeuvre remains a significant contribution to American art.
Jones explored a wealth of styles and subject matter in her works. Her skillful observation and inspiration from nature is revealed in colorful landscapes of Martha's Vineyard, depictions of the winding streets and lush countryside of northern France, as well as traditional still lifes with fruits and flowers. The influence of philosopher Alain Locke, who encouraged Jones and other artists of color to draw inspiration from African arts, is evident in many of her works, such as The Ascent of Ethiopia (1932). She also conveyed the social struggles of African-Americans through powerful psychological portraits such as Mob Victim (1945) and Jennie (1943).
Born in Boston, Jones
graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston during
a period when racial and gender prejudices pervaded society. She
began her career as a textile designer and sold her bold fabric
creations to department stores until a decorator told her that
a colored girl wasn't capable of producing such beautiful designs.
This incident prompted Jones to shift her artistic focus to the
fine arts so that she could sign her name to her works.
Intimations of her transition from design to painting surface
in compositions Jones created in the early 1930s during a brief
teaching stint at Palmer Memorial Institute, a preparatory school
in Sedalia, NC. The paintings Negro Shack 1, Sedalia, North
Carolina (1930) and Brother Brown, Greensboro, North
Carolina (1931) demonstrate the Regionalist character of her
early paintings.
Jones's sense of design resurfaced later in her career after a
series of international travels, which brought out in her works
an overt cultivation of pattern and form in a non-narrative format.
Her marriage in 1952 to noted Haitian graphic artist Louis Vergniaud
Pierre-Noël instigated a change in the subject matter and
palette of her paintings. Her frequent trips to Haiti inspired
paintings that displayed a marked fascination with the Caribbean
culture. After additional travels that included African countries,
her work became characterized by brilliant color, rich patterns
and a variety of Haitian and African motifs. In 1980, President
Jimmy Carter honored Jones for her outstanding achievements in
the arts, and she continued to paint until her death in 1998.
Loïs Mailou Jones: A Life in Vibrant Color was organized
by The Mint Museum and the Loïs Mailou Jones Trust. The exhibition
will be accompanied by a full-color catalogue available for sale
in The Mint Museum Shops.
For further info
check our NC Institutional Gallery listings, call the Museum at
704/337-2000 or visit (www.mintmuseum.org).
Carolina Arts is published monthly by Shoestring Publishing Company, a subsidiary of PSMG, Inc. Copyright© 2009 by PSMG, Inc., which published Charleston Arts from July 1987 - Dec. 1994 and South Carolina Arts from Jan. 1995 - Dec. 1996. It also publishes Carolina Arts Online, Copyright© 2009 by PSMG, Inc. All rights reserved by PSMG, Inc. or by the authors of articles. Reproduction or use without written permission is strictly prohibited. Carolina Arts is available throughout North & South Carolina.