"Lois Mailou Jones"(November 3,1905-June 9,1998)

"Was a prize winning artist who lived into her nineties and who painted and influenced others during the Harlem Renaissance and beyond during her long teaching career.She was born in Boston,Massachusetts and buried on her beloved Martha's Vineyard in the Oak bluffs Cemetery.Dr. Jones began painting as a child and had shows of her work when she was in high school."Every summer of her childhood her mother took her and her brother to Martha Vineyard Island.She began painting in Watercolor.After graduating from the School of the Museum of art in Boston,she designed textiles until a decorator told her--"You couldn't have done this,you're a colored girl."She began looking for a way for name to become known and was turned down for a job at her Alma mater.Lois was hired by Charlotte Hawkins Brown after some initial reservations and founded the art department at Palmer Memorial Institute in North Carolina.As a prep school teacher,she coached a basket team,taught folk dancing and played piano for church services.Only one year later,she was recruited to join the art department at Howard University in Washington D.C.and remained as professor of design and water coloring painting until her retirement in 1977.While developing her own work as an artist,she is known as an outstanding mentor.In 1927,Lois was awarded a diploma in Design with Honors and went on to graduate at prestigious schools in the U.S. and France.She received her bachelor's degree from Howard University in 1945,graduating magna cum laude,and an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Suffolk University IN Boston.Lois also has received honorary degrees from Colorado State Christian University,Massachusetts College of Art, and Howard University and was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in London.Her works is in museums all over the world and valued by

collectors.In 1937,for her first sabbatical from Howard University on a general educational fellowship,Lois went to Paris for the time where she worked very hard producing 35 to 40 pieces during one year's time,including "Les Fetiches"a stunning,African inspired oil which is owned by the Smithsonian American Museum and one of her best known works and her first piece which combined traditional African forms with Western techniques and materials to create a vibrant and compelling work."The French were so inspiring.The people would stand and watch me and say 'mademoiselle,you are so very talented.You are so wonderful.'In other words,the color of my skin didn't matter in Paris and that was one of the main reasons why i think i was so encouraged and began to really think i was talented.In 1996, Lois paintings were featured in an exhibition entitled "Paris,the city of Light" that appeared at several museums throughout the country including the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Milwaukee Art Museum,and Studio Museum of Harlem.The exhibition also featured the works of Barbara Chase-Riboud,Edward Clark,Harold Cousins,Beauford Delaney,Herbert Gentry and Harry Potter.The exhibition examined the importance of Paris as an artistic mecca for African American artists during the 20 years that followed World War2.After marrying Haitian artists Louis Vergniaud Pierre-Noel in 1953,she traveled and lived in Haiti.In many of her pieces you can see the influence of the Haitian culture,with its African influences which reinvigorated the way she looked at the world.Lois work became more abstract and hard-edged,after her marriage to Pierre-Noel.Her impressionist techniques gave way to a spirited,richly pattered,and brilliantly colored style.Further travels to eleven African countries enable her to synthesize a body of designs and motifs that she combined in large,complex compositions.In 1980,she was honored by President Jimmy Carter at the White House for outstanding achievements in the arts.Her paintings grace permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art,National Museum of American art,Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden,National Portrait Gallery,Boston Museum of Fine Arts,the National Palace in Haiti,and the  National Museum of Afro-American Artists and many others.In her nineties, Lois  still painted.Bill Clinton and Hilary Clinton collected one of her island seascapes "Breezy Day at Gay Head" while they were in the White House.Lois felt that her greatest contribution to the art world was "proof of the talent of black artists.""The African-American artist is important in the history of art and i have demonstrated it by working and painting here and all over over the world."But her fondest wish was to be known as an "artist"--without labels like black artists,or woman artist.She has produced work echoes her pride in her African roots and American ancestry Lois Mailou Jones the longest-surving artists of the Harlem Renaissance, died in Washington D.C.