Joe Jones (artist)
Encyclopedia
Joseph John Jones was a 20th century artist: painter
, landscape painter, lithographer, and muralist. TIME
magazine followed him throughout his career. Although Jones was never a member of the John Reed Club
, his name is closely associated with its artistic members, most of them also contributors to the New Masses magazine.
In 1933, ten patrons led by Elizabeth Green in St. Louis formed a "Joe Jones Club" and financed his travel to the artists' colony in Provincetown, Massachusetts
. While some critics have considered his early paintings as typical Midwestern Regionalist
work like Thomas Hart Benton
, others have stated that he was in fact "anti-Regionalist." By then, Jones had only from magazines; art historian Andrew Hemingway surmises that Jones absorbed Modernist and Cubist ideas also from paintings. Upon his return to St. Louis, Jones lived in a houseboat.
In August 1935, Jones painted a mural series at the Commonwealth College at Mena, Arkansas
.
Of the "revolutionary element" his early work, Jones wrote to Green, it is "not warped to bias to any party" except for the "militant struggle of the working class," which he contrasted to artists who believed in the Communist Party
.
In 1935, TIME magazine ran its first story about Jones: "Housepainter" (June 3, 1935). It reported that Jones had contributed a painting to the "Sixteen Cities Show" in Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art, whose autobiography read, "Joe Jones. Born St. Louis, 1909. Self-taught." By this time, Jones had become a Communist... Back in St. Louis, Jones promoted such thinking in his art classes at the St. Louis Artists Guild. The city's Public Safety director threw out Jones.
When Jones came to New York, a symposium by the New Masses celebrated his arrival on February 2, 1936. Participating were Louis Bunin (puppeteer), Stuart Davis
(American Artists' Congress), Joseph Freeman
(literary critic and founder of the New Massess), William Gropper
(fellow painter and cartoonist), Jerome Klein
(critic of the New York Post
, and Roger Baldwin (chairman).
TIME reported on both of one-man shows in New York, first at the ACA Gallery in 1935, followed the Walker Gallery in 1936. The first show included "We Demand," "Garbage Eaters," "Demonstration, "The New Deal," and the shocking "American Justice." The second show included "We Demand," "Garbage Eaters," "Demonstration," and his latest, "Threshing No. 1."
TIME reported in 1937 that the Metropolitan Museum of Art
had acquired at least one Joe Jones paintng as part of (then) 85 paintings of living American artists.
In 1938, TIME was still classing his work at "proletarian" in an article on "Art: Year." and a second article on Baltimore
's first exhibition of "Labor in Art" at the Baltimore Museum of Art
.
.
By 1952, TIME had cited him as one of 48 artists whose 250 paintings had been commissioned by Standard Oil of New Jersey. TIME mentioned Jones with other of the 48 artists by name: the other two were Peter Hurd
and Thomas Hart Benton.
, cliffs near Beirut
, a Greek island, and a Portofino
harbor.
For December 1961, TIME used one of his paintings for their annual Christmas issue. (Jones based the painting on "impressions of the seasonal scene in Atlanta.")
Harbor in the dining salon of the S.S. Independence.
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, landscape painter, lithographer, and muralist. TIME
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine followed him throughout his career. Although Jones was never a member of the John Reed Club
John Reed Club
The John Reed Club was an American, semi-national, Marxist club for writers, artists, and intellectuals, named after the American journalist, activist, and poet, John Reed.-Founding:...
, his name is closely associated with its artistic members, most of them also contributors to the New Masses magazine.
Background
Born in St. Louis, Missouri, April 7, 1909. Self-taught, he quit school at age fifteen to work as a house painter, his father's profession.Career
Jones worked in his native St. Louis, Missouri, until age 27, then spent the rest of his life based in or around New York City.Missouri
Jones' experiments in painting won him a series of prizes at the St. Louis Art Guild exhibitions. Following these came a commission to paint a mural at the KMOX radio station and a solo exhibition by the guild.In 1933, ten patrons led by Elizabeth Green in St. Louis formed a "Joe Jones Club" and financed his travel to the artists' colony in Provincetown, Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
. While some critics have considered his early paintings as typical Midwestern Regionalist
Regionalism (art)
Regionalism is an American realist modern art movement that was popular during the 1930s. The artistic focus was from artists who shunned city life, and rapidly developing technological advances, to create scenes of rural life...
work like Thomas Hart Benton
Thomas Hart Benton (painter)
Thomas Hart Benton was an American painter and muralist. Along with Grant Wood and John Steuart Curry, he was at the forefront of the Regionalist art movement. His fluid, almost sculpted paintings showed everyday scenes of life in the United States...
, others have stated that he was in fact "anti-Regionalist." By then, Jones had only from magazines; art historian Andrew Hemingway surmises that Jones absorbed Modernist and Cubist ideas also from paintings. Upon his return to St. Louis, Jones lived in a houseboat.
In August 1935, Jones painted a mural series at the Commonwealth College at Mena, Arkansas
Mena, Arkansas
Mena is a city in Polk County, Arkansas, United States. It is also the county seat of Polk County.It was founded by Arthur Edward Stilwell during the building of the Kansas City, Pittsburg and Gulf Railroad . It was Stilwell who decided Mena would be the name of this new town along the route to...
.
Of the "revolutionary element" his early work, Jones wrote to Green, it is "not warped to bias to any party" except for the "militant struggle of the working class," which he contrasted to artists who believed in the Communist Party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
.
New York
Perhaps Jones' first appearance in New York came with his painting "Wheat" at the Whitney Museum's Second Biennial of Contemporary American Painting (1934–1935).In 1935, TIME magazine ran its first story about Jones: "Housepainter" (June 3, 1935). It reported that Jones had contributed a painting to the "Sixteen Cities Show" in Manhattan's Museum of Modern Art, whose autobiography read, "Joe Jones. Born St. Louis, 1909. Self-taught." By this time, Jones had become a Communist... Back in St. Louis, Jones promoted such thinking in his art classes at the St. Louis Artists Guild. The city's Public Safety director threw out Jones.
When Jones came to New York, a symposium by the New Masses celebrated his arrival on February 2, 1936. Participating were Louis Bunin (puppeteer), Stuart Davis
Stuart Davis (painter)
Stuart Davis , was an early American modernist painter. He was well known for his jazz influenced, proto pop art paintings of the 1940s and 1950s, bold, brash, and colorful as well as his ashcan pictures in the early years of the 20th century.-Biography:He was born in Philadelphia to Edward Wyatt...
(American Artists' Congress), Joseph Freeman
Joseph Freeman (writer)
Joseph "Joe" Freeman was an American writer and magazine editor. He is best remembered as a contributor and editor to The New Masses, a literary and artistic magazine closely associated with the Communist Party USA, and as a founding editor of the magazine Partisan Review.-Early years:Joseph...
(literary critic and founder of the New Massess), William Gropper
William Gropper
William Victor "Bill" Gropper , was a U.S. cartoonist, painter, lithographer, and muralist. A committed radical, Gropper is best known for the political work which he contributed to such left wing publications as The Revolutionary Age, The Liberator, The New Masses, The Worker, and The Morning...
(fellow painter and cartoonist), Jerome Klein
Jerome Klein
Jerome Klein was an American art historian and art critic.Klein began his career as an instruction in art history at Columbia University in the late 1920s , the only member of the department interested in modern art. In 1933 Klein signed a letter protesting the decision of the university to invite...
(critic of the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
, and Roger Baldwin (chairman).
TIME reported on both of one-man shows in New York, first at the ACA Gallery in 1935, followed the Walker Gallery in 1936. The first show included "We Demand," "Garbage Eaters," "Demonstration, "The New Deal," and the shocking "American Justice." The second show included "We Demand," "Garbage Eaters," "Demonstration," and his latest, "Threshing No. 1."
TIME reported in 1937 that the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
had acquired at least one Joe Jones paintng as part of (then) 85 paintings of living American artists.
In 1938, TIME was still classing his work at "proletarian" in an article on "Art: Year." and a second article on Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
's first exhibition of "Labor in Art" at the Baltimore Museum of Art
Baltimore Museum of Art
The Baltimore Museum of Art in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, was founded in 1914. Built in the Roman Temple style, the Museum is home to an internationally renowned collection of 19th-century, modern, and contemporary art. Founded in 1914 with a single painting, the BMA today has 90,000 works...
.
New Jersey
By 1951, for a new show in New York, TIME was reporting the "angry man calms down." The paintings on exhibit showed "delicately colored, wiry-lined pictures of beaches, towns, and harbors... without a park of sorrow or anger in them." Jones (then, 42 years old) did not want to "sit on top of a reputation," had lost interest in Communism, and removed "class war" from his paintings. He became interested in delicate lines and low-toned colors, a reaction against "the preoccupation with light and shade that has victimized Western art since the Renaissance." By this time, he saw paintings as "space, not objects" and sought humanism not in subject but "of the line." By this time, he was already residing in Morristown, New JerseyMorristown, New Jersey
Morristown is a town in Morris County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the town population was 18,411. It is the county seat of Morris County. Morristown became characterized as "the military capital of the American Revolution" because of its strategic role in the...
.
By 1952, TIME had cited him as one of 48 artists whose 250 paintings had been commissioned by Standard Oil of New Jersey. TIME mentioned Jones with other of the 48 artists by name: the other two were Peter Hurd
Peter Hurd
Peter Hurd was an American artist, born Harold Hurd, Jr., in Roswell, New Mexico.Nicknamed "Pete" by his parents, he later legally changed his name to Peter.-Life:...
and Thomas Hart Benton.
TIME Magazine Covers
For May 1961, Jones painted "The Faraway Places" for a TIME cover story in its Modern Living section on travel. TIME announced his addition to "the small group (about 80 men over the past 38 years) who have painted a TIME cover." According to a Letter from the Publisher, Jones, who had done little foreign travel, "riffled through scads of travel photographs" and produced a work depicting a girl from TahitiTahiti
Tahiti is the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia, located in the archipelago of the Society Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. It is the economic, cultural and political centre of French Polynesia. The island was formed from volcanic activity and is high and mountainous...
, cliffs near Beirut
Beirut
Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan...
, a Greek island, and a Portofino
Portofino
Portofino is a small Italian fishing village, comune and tourist resort located in the province of Genoa on the Italian Riviera. The town is crowded round its small harbour, is closely associated with Paraggi Beach, which is a few minutes up the coast...
harbor.
For December 1961, TIME used one of his paintings for their annual Christmas issue. (Jones based the painting on "impressions of the seasonal scene in Atlanta.")
Death
Jones died the week prior to April 19, 1963, as reported by TIME, 54-years-old, of a heart attack in Morristown. Of his early, radical work, the magazine cited "American Justice" with the corpse of a half-naked black woman who has been raped and lynched against a background of quietly chatting Ku Klux Klansmen. For his later, "softer Japanese-like style," it cited his December 1961 cover and a mural of BostonBoston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
Harbor in the dining salon of the S.S. Independence.
External links
- Yale University Press: Artists on the Left by Andrew Hemingway
- St. Louis Arts Guild: Our Proud Past
- Comrades in Art: Joe Jones (1909–1963)
- Library of Congress: Life of the People - The American Scene (Joe Jones, "Wasteland," 1937)
- Art of the Print: Joe Jones