‘A Century of African American Art: the Paul R. Jones Collection’ to open in September

4:51 p.m., Aug. 17, 2004--A major exhibition drawn from the Paul R. Jones Collection, which is among the oldest, largest and most comprehensive collections of works by 20th-Century African American artists in the world, will open in September and continue through the 2004-05 academic year at the University of Delaware. A grand opening celebration will be held Nov. 11-13.

The exhibition, titled “A Century of African American Art: The Paul R. Jones Collection,” will feature 101 significant works by 66 artists, including Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, Henry Ossawa Tanner, James Van Der Zee, Carrie Mae Weems and Hale Woodruff. Also included are the works of emerging artists such as Aimee Miller, Cedric Smith, D.H. Caranda-Martin and Michael Ellison.

The main exhibition space will be in the newly renovated Mechanical Hall, home of the Paul R. Jones Collection, with additional works on view in the University Gallery in adjacent Old College.

The art objects represent the range of visual expression in the collection housed at UD, and the exhibition is designed to provide an opportunity for careful study of the interaction between works, individual images, the artists who created them, as well as the social and historical contexts that engendered them, according to Amalia Amaki, curator of the collection.

“The exhibition facilitates examinations of four issues in American art: portraiture and realism in relation to abstract expressionism, the implications of color, the role of narrative and the concept of multiple originals,” Amaki said.

“In so doing, efforts are made to ‘de-race’ African American art,” she said, “not to strip the work of its idiomatic cultural footing but rather to situate it within the larger picture of the nation’s history and cultural traditions. The eclectic selections allow viewers to self-examine while engaging the works presented.”

Jones, a business executive and former federal administrator, first began collecting works by African American artists in the early 1960s. He gained an affinity for the beauty of art from his parents while growing up in an iron ore mining camp in Bessemer, Ala., and began his collection by purchasing three prints on a street corner and framing them himself.

Jones said he found he enjoyed having the art on the walls of his home and soon decided that it would be even more rewarding to collect original works, with a focus on those by fellow African Americans. A pioneer in the field, he visited many art museums and galleries and found that African American artists were greatly underrepresented.

As one of the few collectors of such works at the time, Jones often found himself taking on the role of social worker by providing artists their next meal or month’s rent through his purchases. As such, he developed close personal relationships with many of the artists whose works are now included in the collection.

Eventually, the more than 1,500 works filled Jones’s home, taking up nearly all of the wall space and spilling over into closets and drawers. He came to realize the collection required a permanent home in an institution that could not only exhibit the work but conserve it, use it in academic programs, work cooperatively with Historically Black Colleges and Universities and use leading-edge technology to digitize the works for online viewing by as wide an audience as possible.

Library, color lithograph, by Jacob Lawrence, 1978

He turned to the University of Delaware and, in 2001, announced the gift of the Paul R. Jones Collection, citing the institution's significant resources to professionally conserve and exhibit the vast array of paintings, drawings, photographs, lithographs and sculpture.

Jones said he had wanted to find a way to keep the collection together so that it would have the greatest impact on artists, scholars and students. He was seeking a home where the collection would be wanted and woven into the fabric of the institution, where it would be used for teaching and exhibitions, and he said he found that place in the University of Delaware under the leadership of President David P. Roselle.

Upon presentation of the collection, UD began working to fulfill Jones’s dreams by developing a working relationship with then-President Audrey Forbes Manley and Spelman College in Atlanta, sharing the collection through traveling exhibitions and creating digital images of works that can now be enjoyed online.

Today, the collection is housed in UD’s historic Mechanical Hall, which recently underwent a $4.6 million facelift to provide appropriate space for storage, conservation, academic endeavors and exhibition space.

In October 2002, the internationally known Brandywine Print Workshop, an organization that champions cultural diversity in the visual arts, presented Jones its James Van Der Zee Award for lifetime contributions to the arts during a gala 30th anniversary celebration at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts in Philadelphia. Brandywine further honored Jones with a gift of several hundred prints that will be added to the total gift from the collector to UD.

In March 2003, Jones was named one of the Top 100 Collectors in America by the magazine Art & Antiques and he will be presented an honorary doctor of humane letters degree by UD during New Student Convocation on Monday, Aug. 30.

The exhibition will open Wednesday, Sept. 8, and continue through June 1, 2005. Hours are 11 a.m.-4 p.m., Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays; 11 a.m.-8 p.m., Wednesdays; and 1-4 p.m., Saturdays and Sundays.

For additional information on the exhibition, see the University Museums web site at [www.museums.udel.edu/jones/index5.1.html].

Article by Neil Thomas
Photo illustration by Rich Dunoff and Barbara Broge

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