Barbara Jones-Hogu

Barbara Jones-Hogu (April 17, 1938 – November 14, 2017) was an African-American artist best known for her work with the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC) and for co-founding the artists' collective AfriCOBRA.

Early life and education Barbara Jones-Hogu was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1938. She received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Howard University and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She earned a Master of Fine Arts degree from the Institute of Design in Chicago, as well as a master's degree in printing from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago. She later pursued a Master of Fine Arts in Independent Film and Digital Imaging at Governors State University while in her early seventies.

Jones-Hogu also created a work entitled "Stop Genocide." The work was based on gangs, which she thought could be used as a force for good if they came together. However, she felt that the gangs were engaging in "self-genocide" instead of aiming to stop genocide, which she defined as "hite on black genocide and crime." The "Unite" print consists of two versions - one was created prior to her co-forming the group in 1969, and another version was created in 1971 after she became a member. She wished to display more positive issues in her politics, and this was a philosophy also echoed by AfriCOBRA. Jones-Hogu later remarked in an interview that she was told that people had complained about the number of times her work was exhibited at the center, which ended her run of exhibitions there. Her work has appeared in books, including Creating Their Own Image: The History of African American Women Artists, The Black Arts Movement: Literary Nationalism in the 1960s and 1970s, and Toward a People's Art: The Contemporary Mural Movement. after she met him at an exhibition in which her work was displayed in 2004. She reportedly walked up to him and asked him why she had not received an invitation to the show, as her work was being displayed in it. She and Lusenhop became friends. Lusenhop Fine Art, of Cleveland, Ohio, represents the Estate of Barbara Jones-Hogu.

Her first solo museum exhibition took place at the DePaul Art Museum in Chicago in 2018. It was entitled Barbara Jones-Hogu: Resist, Relate, Unite 1968–1975.

Works of Barbara Jones-Hogu Jones-Hogu's work is numerous in numbers, distribution and location. There is an abundance of work by Jones-Hogu that stems from both her importance and influence in AfriCOBRA's movement as well as her own independent work, which extends from the 1960s and '70s up to recent years and her death in 2017. Exhibitions in which her work featured include Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power exhibition, AfriCOBRA Nation Time, AfriCOBRA Messages to the People, We Wanted A Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965-85, and many more.

Works (partial)

Getting the Game Together, 1967, woodcut on paper Man's Return, 1967, woodcut on paper The Land Where My Father Died, 1968, screenprint America II, 1969, screenprint Stop Genocide, 1970, screenprint Rise and Take Control, 1971, screenprint Relate to Your Heritage, 1971, screenprint Black Men We Need You, 1971, color screenprint To Be Free (TCB), 1971, screenprint To Be Free (Know the Past, Prepare for the Future), 1971, screenprint When Styling, 1973, screenprint God's Child, 2009, screenprint