LOÏS MAILOU JONES (1905 - 1998)
Born in Boston, Loïs Mailou Jones began her artistic journey after graduating in textile design from the
School of the Museum of Fine Arts.While she remained closely associated with Boston and Martha’s
Vineyard, her international career began when she received a scholarship from Howard University to
study at the Académie Julian in Paris from 1937-38. She returned to Howard in the fall of 1938 as a
watercolor and design instructor; she continued to teach there for over five decades. Jones won the
prestigious RobertWoods Bliss Prize for Landscape at the Corcoran Gallery of Art inWashington, DC
in 1941. Her success continued through the 1940s and ’50s with her inclusion in many exhibitions,
including the National Academy of Design,ACA Gallery and Grand Central Art Galleries in NewYork,
and a solo exhibition at the Barnett Aden Gallery inWashington, DC in 1946. Her travels in the 1950s
and ’60s continued to influence her development–from the Impressionism and Post-Impressionism found
in France to the Modernism inspired by Haiti and Africa.
Today, Loïs Mailou Jones’s artwork is in numerous museum collections, including the Corcoran Gallery
of Art, the Howard University Gallery of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, the National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian Institution. Her distinguished career
as an artist, designer and educator have received new attention with the 2010 retrospective
Loïs Mailou
Jones, A Life in Vibrant Color,
which traveled from the Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC to the National
Museum ofWomen in the Arts,Washington, DC.
Jones married Haitian artist LouisVergniaud Pierre-Noël in 1953.This is the first time works have been
available at auction directly from her personal collection through the Loïs Mailou Jones Pierre-Noël
Trust.These paintings (lots 56-60) were selected from the artist’s estate to give an overview of her great
breadth and consistency.
Scurlock Studio Records, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution.