Anna Russell Jones and Archives of African American Art and Life

Anna Russell Jones, who was born in Jersey City, New Jersey in 1902 and died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1995, worked extensively within the practices of visual art and design. Yet she remains a relatively obscure artist despite producing more than seventeen linear feet of archived material, housed at the African American Museum in Philadelphia. As the first African American woman to receive a four-year scholarship from the Philadelphia Board of Education and first African American graduate of the Philadelphia School of Design for Women (PSDW), now Moore College of Art & Design, Jones’s educational development and achievements in art marked the beginning of a life that not only challenged but also moved beyond the delimiting ideological and corporeal definitions of “black” and “women artists” that pervaded early and mid-20th century America. Her art, work, and life experiences are useful for thinking about the political dangers and economic barriers that black women artists contested, especially throughout the decades surrounding her most compelling acts of creation. This paper builds on my efforts to curate the first solo exhibition of her work at the African American Museum, planned for 2020. In it, I construct a conceptual framework that helps us to make sense of Jones’s works of art, modes of being, and cultural practices. Specifically, I examine the emancipatory politics of visual literacy and educational attainment undergirded by creativity and self-directed labor that defined her work and her activism.