New book puts spotlight on Paul R. Jones Collection

Amalia Amaki

4:51 p.m., Nov. 12, 2004--A new book, titled A Century of African American Art: The Paul R. Jones Collection, is an important resource for the study of the works included in a landmark exhibition of the same name that is under way at the University of Delaware and will run until June, 2005.

The book was edited by Amalia Amaki, curator of the Paul R. Jones Collection, and was published by the Rutgers University Press in cooperation with the University Museum at the University of Delaware.

The Paul R. Jones Collection is among the world’s oldest, largest and most complete holdings of works by 20th-Century African American artists. Jones donated the core of his 1,500-piece collection, amassed over the course of the last four decades, to the University of Delaware in February 2001.

Currently, the exhibition is on view in newly renovated Mechanical Hall, the home of the collection, and in the University Gallery in adjacent Old College.

The book looks at the works, the artists who created them and the social and historical contexts that engendered them. Among the 66 artists represented in the exhibition are Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence, Henry Ossawa Tanner, James Van Der Zee, Carrie Mae Weems and Hale Woodruff.

Lavishly illustrated with more than 100 color photographs, the book features 10 essays that examine essential issues in American artportraiture and realism in relation to abstract expressionism, the implications of color, the role of narrative and the concept of multiple originals.

The essays attempt to “de-race” African American art, Amaki said, “not to strip the work of its natural cultural footing but rather to situate it within the larger picture of the nation’s historical traditions.”

Reflecting the diversity of the collection itself, the contributors come from a wide range of fields, including American art, African American art, African art, art conservation, color theory, photography and sociology.

Several essayists featured in the book are from UD, including Amaki, who in the opening pages considers the idea that the development of the collection can be considered a political act. From the outset, she wrote, Jones “aligned collecting with social and moral responsibility, perceiving it as a necessary, though seldom acknowledged, affirmation of the intrinsic value of African American expression to the totality of American art.”

Ann Eden Gibson, professor of art history, writes on Nanette Carter’s discursive modernism; Ikem Stanley Okoye, assistant professor of art history, writes on the usages of color by African American artists; and Margaret Andersen, professor of sociology, writes on art, race and biography. Also, Debra Hess Norris, Henry Francis du Pont Chair in Fine Arts and chairperson of the Department of Art Conservation, writes on the preservation of photographs in the collection for posterity.

“Together, the selections make a major contribution to redefining African American scholarship in the broadest sense, while also providing important insights into the Paul R. Jones Collection,” Amaki said.

Copies of the book will be available for purchase during a gala celebration on Saturday, Nov. 13. Jones will be on hand for the event, and autographed copies will be available.

The book can be purchased through UD by calling the Office of University Museums at (302) 831-8037. It also can be purchased online through the Rutgers University Press web site at [http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu/] or through commercial sites, including Barnes and Noble and Amazon.

Amaki is both the curator of the Paul R. Jones Collection and an assistant professor of art and black American studies at UD. She is writing three books, Freedom Lights the Way: A History of All-Black Shows in America, Multiple Readings in the Photographs of Prentice Herman Polk and Monkeys, Myth and Mime: The Mature Works of Hale Aspacio Woodruff.

Rutgers University Press is a nonprofit publishing house that operates under the auspices of Rutgers University.

Article by Neil Thomas

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