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Artwork

Africa

Loïs Mailou Jones

1905-1998

Africa

Oil on canvas board

23 7/8 in x 19 7/8 in

1935

Label:

For nearly half a century, Loïs Mailou Jones served on the faculty at Howard University in Washington, DC, where colleagues encouraged the Boston-born artist to create work that would contradict contemporary racial stereotypes and explore her African heritage.

Jones’s response to that challenge is powerfully borne out in Africa. Executed in vibrant jewel-like hues, Africa depicts three sharply-defined figures adorned with jewelry and patterned cloth. The trio’s symmetrical, elongated features and expressionless eyes recall similar visages found in African masks, a recurrent aesthetic component in Jones’s oeuvre. On the occasion of her ninetieth birthday, Jones reflected upon her artistic longevity and the obstacles she had confronted. “It wasn’t easy,” she said. “There was the double handicap: being a woman and being a woman of color. I kept going on, with determination. As I look back, I wonder how I’ve done it.”

As Published In:

Central to Their Lives: Southern Women Artists in the Johnson Collection, 2018

Southern/Modern: Rediscovering Southern Art from the First Half of the Twentieth Century, 2023

As Exhibited In:

Edges of Ailey, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, September 25, 2024–February 9, 2025

Southern/Modern: 1913-1955, Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA, July 1, 2023–February 1, 2025, Frist Art Museum, Nashville, TN, January 25–April 28, 2024, Mint Museum Uptown, Charlotte, NC, October 25, 2024–February 2, 2025

Afro-Atlantic Histories, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, TX, October 24, 2021–January 28, 2024

Biennale Arte 2022 – Esposizione Internazionale d’Arte, Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia, Ca' Giustinian, 30124 Venezia VE, April 23–November 27, 2022

Riffs and Relations: African American Artists and the European Modernist Tradition, The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC, February 29, 2020–January 3, 2021

Central to Their Lives: Southern Women Artists in the Johnson Collection, Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA, June 30–October 23, 2018, Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS, November 16, 2018–January 20, 2019, Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, WV, March 2–June 30, 2019, Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, TN, July 28–October 13, 2019, Gibbes Museum of Art, Charleston, SC, January 1–August 9, 2020, Wofford College, Spartanburg, SC, September 7–December 18, 2020, Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA, February 6–July 18, 2021

To Teach is to Learn: Lessons in African American Art of the South, TJC Gallery, Spartanburg, SC, August 31, 2017–January 12, 2018

Other Artworks by This Artist

Artist's Full Bio