Loïs Mailou Jones (1905-1998) painting in her Paris studio in 1937 or 1938 as her cat hangs out on her shoulder. Born in Boston, her mother, Carolyn Dorinda Jones was a hat designer and a beautician, and her father, Thomas Vreeland Jones, was an office building superintendent before becoming a lawyer at age forty. Ms. Jones was encouraged by both parents to pursue art and she graduated from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in 1927. After studying art at Harvard and Columbia, she established the art department at Palmer Memorial Institute, the black preparatory school founded by Charlotte Hawkins Brown in Sedalia, North Carolina. Ms. Jones then moved on to Howard University in 1930 and remained there until 1977. Photo: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
