While performing an Internet search last week, I came across an image of a painting by Loïs Mailou Jones that had been erroneously attributed to Beauford.
by Loïs Mailou Jones
The image of The Pink Table Cloth clearly shows Jones' signature at the bottom right corner of the painting, so I presume the error was clerical.
The vivid hues in this work first made me think of Beauford's mastery of the juxtaposition of colors on his canvases.
It then caused me to remember that the two artists knew each other and had several things in common (in addition to being fabulous colorists).
Loïs Mailou Jones
(1940) Casein on board
Smithsonian American Art Museum
Fair use claim
They both
- took classes at the Massachusetts Normal Art School in Boston in the 1920s,
- spent considerable time in France,
- created multiple self-portraits,
- represented African art and artifacts in their artwork,
- traveled extensively (Beauford in Western Europe; Jones in Haïti and Subsaharan Africa), and
- produced hundreds of works in their lifetimes.
Both also had their work featured in the Studio Museum in Harlem's Explorations in the City of Light: African-American Artists in Paris 1945-1965 exhibition that was also shown in Chicago, New Orleans, Fort Worth, and Milwaukee in 1996-1997.
Beauford Delaney
(1944) Oil on canvas
Art Institute of Chicago
© Estate of Beauford Delaney
By permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator
In the biography Amazing Grace: A Life of Beauford Delaney, author David Leeming mentions Jones twice in the chapter called "Boston and Harlem" but does not state outright that the two artists were friends or even communicated directly with each other.
A note found in the Beauford Delaney Papers at the University of Tennessee Knoxville provides evidence that they did have a social connection. It is written on a card that Jones used when she was a professor at Howard University.
Beauford Delaney Papers, MS.3967.
University of Tennessee Libraries, Knoxville,
Betsey B. Creekmore Special Collections and University Archives.*
Image by Wells International Foundation
Jones wrote the month in French (15 août is August 15) and used the salutation Cher (Dear) in addressing Beauford. She says she is "so sorry" to have missed seeing him.
The closing salutation is also in French (A bientôt - See you soon).
Because she joined the faculty at Howard in 1930 and worked there until 1977, and because no envelope (and therefore no postmark) was associated with the card, we don't know when this encounter was to have taken place.
*Conditions Governing Use
Estate of Beauford Delaney,
by permission of Derek L. Spratley, Esquire,
Court Appointed Administrator.
Held in the Beauford Delaney Papers, MS.3967,
Betsey B. Creekmore Special Collections and University Archives,
University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
