Noted African-American Art Collector Paul R. Jones Dies

Paul R. Jones, one of the top 100 art collectors in the United States has died. He was 81. Jones died in Atlanta on Tuesday January 26, after a brief illness, said University of Alabama spokeswoman Angie Estes. The university established an art collection in Jones’ name after receiving some 1,700 pieces valued at $5 million in 2008.

The Paul R. Jones Collection of American Art includes one of the largest and most comprehensive collections of 20th century African American art in the world, amassed over decades by Jones, who has been described by Art & Antiques magazine as “one of the top art collectors in the country.”

Jones began buying pieces in the 1960s after noting African-American art was underrepresented in public galleries. Jones bought three small prints from a street vendor — works by Toulouse-Lautrec, Chagall, and Degas. As Jones began to immerse himself in the art community and attend major exhibitions, he realized African-American art was vastly under-represented in public collections. It was then that he began his goal of collecting American artwork with a particular emphasis toward collecting African-American art.

 As the drawings, paintings, photographs, sculptures and other works grew into the hundreds, part of his collection was exhibited at the University of Delaware in 1993. He later made a gift of several hundred works to the school.

“My goal has been to incorporate African-American art into American art,” he told The Tuscaloosa News in 2008 when he made his donation to the University of Alabama with a plan for it to be part of the curriculum. He embraced the school even though he was turned down by the University of Alabama Law School in 1949 after it discovered he was Black.

$4.8 Million Paul R. Jones Art Collection Donated to UA

Born in Bessemer, Ala., in the central part of the state, he was raised in the Muscoda Mining Camp of an iron and steel corporation. Jones attended historically Black Alabama State University in Montgomery and finished his education at Howard University in Washington, D.C.

As Jones began buying African American art, he often had to deal with the artists directly, since many were not represented in commercial galleries. From those interactions, Jones learned about the artists, and their work, and about art in general, which made him a more sensitive collector, he said. Additionally, the collection took on moral and social implications.

“At times, I would purchase works from artists I liked to help them pay the rent or mortgage or buy a ticket home to see family,” he said. “Sometimes I felt like a social worker in addition to an art collector.” Soon, Jones’ collection and reputation grew. Art work covered not only all the wall space, but entire closets and rooms of his Atlanta home. Artists now seek out Jones hoping to be included in his collection as Jones’ taste has become the benchmark by which many other collectors acquire African American art.

Described as a civil rights activist, he worked with an interracial community group in Birmingham, Ala., and held jobs with the federal government for 15 years before becoming deputy director of the Peace Corps based in Thailand. When his collection grew into the hundreds, he decided it should be used for educational purposes.

“I knew I could sell the collection at its appreciated price, and get myself a chauffeur, a cook, a maid, and travel the world,” he was quoted on a University of Delaware Web site devoted to his collection. “But, I realized I wanted to do something with my collection that would have a lasting impact, both in my lifetime and beyond.”

Posted by The Cotillion Online on Jan 31 2010. Filed under Art, Music, Culture & Lifestyle, Death Notices, Featured. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.