Oct 07, 2008 - Sale 2156

Sale 2156 - Lot 50

Price Realized: $ 4,080
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
SIGNED BY 8 AFRICOBRA MEMBERS BARBARA JONES-HOGU (1938 - )
UNITE.

Color screenprint, 1971. 570x762 mm; 22 1/2x30 inches, wide margins. Signed by the artist and by fellow AfriCOBRA artists, Gerald Williams, Napolean Henderson, Carolyn Mims Lawrence, Jae Jarrell, Howard Mallory, and Nelson Stevens (with one unidentified signature) in ink, lower margin. Violet ink stamped "AfriCOBRA, Print #10, Copyright 1971," lower left. Scattered liquid stains, time staining and hairline breaks in the image; adhesive residue and edge tears outside the image. A very good impression of this scarce, large screenprint.

Another impression was recently donated to the Art Institute of Chicago by the collectors Patrick and Judy Diamond.

Unite is a wonderful example of early work of this artist collaborative in Chicago. Having worked together on the mural The Wall of Respect, Barbara Jones-Hogu and her contemporaries artists wanted to establish a revolutionary but representational style that be accessible to a wide urban audience. The Coalition of Black Revolutionary Artists (COBRA) soon became the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists (AfriCOBRA). Between 1968 and 1973, the group organized exhibitions at the Studio Museum in Harlem and the University of Massachusestts, Amherst, and published large, colorful prints such as this. Schmidt Campbell p. 57.