The first African-American woman to graduate from the Boston Museum’s School of Fine Arts, Loïs Mailou Jones was the longest-serving of the artists of the so-called Harlem Renaissance and her works today are three of the most highly rated on the market. Among the first painters to combine traditional African art forms with aesthetics and Western currents, she painted en plain air in Paris in expressionist and then cubist style, taught in Haiti and at Howard University in Washington DC, where she developed her practice and assumed the role of mentor for her students, defending and promoting the art and artists of the black community.
