Loïs Mailou Jones (Nov. 3, 1905 - 1996): Moon Masque, 1971 - oil and collage on canvas (Smithsonian)

“Mine is a quiet exploration—a quest for new meanings in color, texture and design. Even though I sometimes portray scenes of poor and struggling people, it is a great joy to paint.” — Lois Mailou Jones quoted in Samella S. Lewis and Ruth G.Waddy, Black Artists on Art (Los Angeles: Contemporary Crafts Publishers, 1969), 1:97.

“For more than fifty years, Lois Mailou Jones has enjoyed a consistently successful career as a painter, teacher, book illustrator, and textile designer. Her art spans three continents: North America, Europe, and Africa, and she has been represented in more than seventy group shows and mounted twenty one-woman exhibitions since 1937.

Jones’s return to African themes in her work of the past several decades coincided with the black expressionistic movement in the United States during the 1960s. Skillfully integrating aspects of African masks, figures, and textiles into her vibrant paintings, Jones continues to produce exciting new works at an