Portrait of Hudson

“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

For forty years, Jones taught at Howard University, an historically black college in Washington, D.C.; Portrait of Hudson is a sensitive portrayal of one of her students. Here she sought to represent the concept of the “New Negro,” as popularized during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 30s , which promoted dignity, advocacy, and agency in the face of Jim Crow segregation.

A pioneering artist of color, Jones began her career as a textile designer. She later turned to painting and traveled to Paris, where she felt significantly less restricted by racial boundaries. On her return to the United States, however, racism continued to affect her career. In 1938, she had a friend enter her into a competition at Washington’s Corcoran Gallery of Art—because African American artists were not permitted to apply. She won a major prize.