Apr 07, 2016 - Sale 2409

Sale 2409 - Lot 54

Price Realized: $ 40,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 20,000 - $ 30,000
LOÏS MAILOU JONES (1905 - 1998)
Homage to Martin Luther King.

Watercolor on illustration board, 1968. 775x565 mm; 30 1/2x22 1/4 inches. Signed and dated in watercolor, lower right recto. Signed, titled and inscribed with the artist's Washington, DC address in ink, center verso. Also signed and dedicated in ink on a fragment of backing paper, mounted to the frame back.

Provenance: acquired directly from the artist; private collection, New York (1992).

Exhibited: Reflections of King, National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis, TN, February - March, 1993; In the Spirit of Martin: the Living Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, January 12, 2002 - March 30, 2004, with the label on the frame back, including the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, Detroit, MI, Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach, FL, Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN, International Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN, and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, AL; Lois Mailou Jones, 58 Years of Watercolors, 1930-1988, Brody's Gallery, Washington, DC, October, 1998, with the label on the frame back; the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC, 1992 - 2015.

Illustrated: Sorin, Gretchen and Helen M. Shannon, In the Spirit of Martin: the Living Legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., p. 158; Jubilee! A Year of African-American Celebration / 2003, Smithsonian Anacostia Museum and Center for African American History and Culture calendar, 2003.

This important artwork of the Civil Rights period was Loïs Mailou Jones' direct response to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Jones' multi-faceted tribute to the life of Dr. King is depicted in many watercolor panels. This stirring visual representation of his legacy has been widely exhibited nationally and on loan for the past 20 years to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC. In the Black Womens' Oral History Project, Loïs Mailou Jones herself described this artwork as "one of the works which is considered outstanding as a result of using the black experience as an influence."