Assemblage of mixed media, 2008. 444x292 mm; 17 1/2x11 1/2 inches. Signed in ink, verso.
Provenance: acquired directly from the artist; private New York collection.
This work shows Ben Jones's continued interest in a decorative aesthetic that celebrates beauty, spiritualism, dance and music in both African and African-American culture. Sing Dinah Sing combines the gilded look of icon painting with the bejewelled look of dance queens--a theme that goes back to his 1970 painting, The High Priestess of Soul. His recent major retrospective at the Jersey City Museum of Art, Deliverance, featured a complete survey of the New Jersey artist's work. Jones is best known for his iconic Black Face and Arm Unit, from 1971, now in the permanent collection of the State Museum of New Jersey in Trenton. His 1970 Five Black Face Images also illustrated the front cover of Elsa Honig Fine's 1973 The Afro-American Artist.
