Art is Business" of Barara Jones Hogu, 2019.
Barbara Jones-Hogu is a painter, printmaker, filmmaker, and educator from Chicago. She studied at Howard University, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Institute of Design at IIT. She was a member of the OBAC Visual Artists Workshop and painted the actors’ section of the Wall of Respect. In 1968, together with four other artists, she co-founded AFRICOBRA, the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists. Her work has appeared in exhibitions in Chicago and around the United States and has been collected by many major institutions. Currently, she is pursuing a Master’s degree in film from Governors State University.
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| AfriCOBRA artist, Barbara Jones-Hogu and IMLS Fellow Skyla Hearn |
Barbara Jones-Hogu was born in Chicago. She received a BA from Howard University in 1959, a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1964, and an MS with a concentration in printmaking from the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago in 1970. Jones-Hogu is associated with the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. As a member of OBAC (Organization for Black American Culture), she was one of the muralists who created the important “Wall of Respect” in 1967 on the south side of Chicago – a public work that inspired the creation of socially, politically and culturally themed murals across the urban American landscape.
In 1968, Jones-Hogu became a founding member of the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists (AfriCOBRA). As a member of AfriCOBRA, she participated in formulating the group’s mission statement, which stressed black independence and artistic self-determination.
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| "Untitled" watercolor, from the estate of Barbara Jones Huge, 2019 |
