JONES, LOIS MAILOU

born Nov. 3, 1905, Boston, Mass., U.S. died June 9, 1998, Washington, D.C. Les Ftiches, oil on canvas by Lois Mailou Jones, 1938; in the National Museum of African-American painter and educator whose works reflect a command of widely varied styles and an ability to incorporate many different influences. Jones was reared in Boston by middle-class parents who nurtured her early talent and ambition. She studied art at Boston High School of Practical Arts, the Boston Museum School of Fine Arts, and the Designers Art School of Boston. Her family spent summers on Martha's Vineyard, where she painted watercolour sketches and enjoyed the encouragement of artists who summered there. She moved to Sedalia, N.C., to establish an art department at the Palmer Memorial Institute, a black preparatory school. Within two years, her students' exhibited work had attracted the attention of Howard University (Washington, D.C.), whose faculty she joined in 1930. In the early 1930s, Jones's art reflected the influences of African traditions. She designed African-style masks and in 1938 painted Les Ftiches, which depicts masks in five distinct ethnic styles. A sabbatical year in Paris in 193738, to study painting at the Julian Academy, produced a dozen years of landscapes and figure studies. She painted outdoors, in the French tradition, rendering pastoral landscapes and street scenes, and contributed to Paris exhibitions. Relishing the freedom from racial prejudice she found in France, Jones summered there often. In 1953 Jones married the artist Louis Vergniaud Pierre-Nol of Haiti, and she came to know many of that nation's artists. From this time she painted portraits and landscapes in brighter colours and with a more expressionistic style than she had previously employed. 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 dominated. A retrospective of her work toured the United States in the 1980s and '90s.