Activist, scholar, critic, educator as well as a talented artist Jeffrey Richardson Donaldson made a tremendous impact on African American art. Sometime in the mid-1960s he observed: “One rarely sees a black human-interest story [in the newspaper]” and on television, “not a single one of the new programs celebrates the beauty and dignity of black lifestyle.”
Born in segregated Pine Bluff, Arkansas, in early childhood he started drawing cartoons. He attended the local Merrill High School before enrolling at Arkansas Agricultural, Mechanical, and Normal College (now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff). He had rejected a chance to integrate the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. Donaldson broke ground as the first studio art major at Arkansas AM&N, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1954 before taking a position as an art instructor for a year at Lamer High School in Jackson, Mississippi.
Following a stint in the military, Donaldson settled in Chicago, where he was both teacher and student. He was an art instructor for the Chicago Public Schools, 1957–1959, and at Marshall High School he was the chair of the art department, 1959–1965. Then he was assistant professor, 1965–1968 at Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago, and visiting professor, 1968-1970 at Northwestern University, in Evanston, Illinois. Pursuing his own education, he took classes intermittently at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and earned a Master of Science degree in art education and administration from the Institute of Design of the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1963. In 1974 he received his PhD in art history from Northwestern; the topic of his dissertation focused on young artists working in Harlem during the 1930s. In this capacity, he interviewed artists such as Charles Alston and Romare Bearden; the transcripts are maintained at the Archives of American Art along with files on Jacob Lawrence, Archibald Motley, and Hale Woodruff.
While in Chicago, Donaldson became active with other Black artists such as Wadsworth Jarrell and became a co-founder of the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC) Visual Art Workshop. This group created the influential Wall of Respect mural in 1967 on the southside of Chicago which celebrated the history and achievements of African Americans. Donaldson commented on the success of the mural: “It seemed that overnight news of black artists painting pictures on the outside of a dilapidated tavern in the heart of the despised ghetto spread over Chicago and the nation like flames in a windstorm.” In 1968 Donaldson co-founded the artist collaborative AfriCOBRA—African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists—of which he was a lifelong member. Established at the height of the Civil Rights movement, both organizations sought to eliminate demeaning stereotypes, promote pride in Black culture, and forge connections with African traditions. His commitment to these goals led to his involvement in FESTAC, the World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture, in Lagos, Nigeria, which he served as a director from 1975–1980.
Leaving Chicago following the death of African American art historian James Porter in 1970, Donaldson took the position of gallery director and art department chair at Howard University in Washington, DC, joining Loïs Mailou Jones and Hughie Lee-Smith. Based perhaps on his success in reforming the art history curriculum, Donaldson was elevated to the position of associate dean from 1985–1990 and the dean of the College of Fine Arts from 1990–2004. In addition to his role at Howard, Donaldson served from 1999–2001 as Vice President of the board of the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania, and on the board of the National Center for Afro-American Artists in Roxbury, Massachusetts.
Throughout, Donaldson was dedicated to his own art, which consists of paintings and mixed media inspired both in style and content by African traditions. The work is vividly colorful and visually active, generally depicting Black figures. Noted educator and artist David Driskell paid his friend the following tribute: “Jeff Donaldson is one of those rare individuals whose coveted gift in art is astonishingly diverse. As artist, teacher, administrator, and historian, he is both a trusted keeper and recorder of our cultural history and a creator of powerful images which help us to define the Black Experience. He is a humanist, whose talents as a theorist and art historian gave us one of the first manifestos in African American art.”