Loïs Mailou Jones

Loïs Mailou Jones, who was born in Boston in 1905 and died in Washington in 1998, developed a painting practice informed by several cultural worlds. Trained at Boston's School of the Museum of Fine Arts, she began in textile design before teaching at Howard University from 1930 to 1977. Her stay in Paris in 1937, when she attended the Académie Julian, enriched her approach to landscape and colour.

Connections with Haiti and subsequent research in several African countries expanded her vocabulary of forms. Masks, textile patterns and geometric signs entered compositions built on emphatic contrasts. She also continued to make portraits and landscapes. Moving between observation and decorative synthesis, Jones treated African traditions and transatlantic experience as active resources for modern painting. Her long teaching career extended these explorations to generations of artists.