The Degas/ Cassatt Exhibit and Lois Mailou Jones

Yesterday I visited the National Gallery of Art in DC and browsed the new Degas/ Cassatt exhibit there.   What prompted me to go was my knowing that Edgar Degas and Mary Cassatt were both impressionist painters.  And that reminded me of the great American artist Lois Mailou Jones (1905 – 1998).  Jones was influenced by the impressionist school of painters.  Let’s look at some of her earlier accomplishments.

Lois Mailou Jones had been a designer; taught art at Howard University; and won prizes for her art in Boston, at Martha’s Vineyard, and in Harlem and elsewhere before she went to Paris to study.  

But her study and productivity in Paris, at the Académie Julian (1937 – 1938) helped her transition from being a designer and teacher exclusively to being a painter and artist. 

Some of her paintings influenced by the impressionist school of painting were:   Les Pommes Vertes; Chou-fleur et Citrouille, Paris; La Cuisine dans L’Atelier de l’Artiste, Paris; Rue Norvins, Montmartre, Paris; Dans le Jardin du Luxembourg, Pars; and Dejeuner, Place du Tertre, Montmartre.  

During that year in Paris she produced many and various other paintings as well. 

Once Mailou Jones finished her studies in Paris she transitioned to being recognized for her own creations.  She maintained a great relationship with Paris, returning many times through the years to paint and visit friends.  She enjoyed a long and illustrious career.  Her paintings are on display in galleries and museums all over the world.

The new Degas/ Cassatt exhibit at the National Gallery of Art in Washington will be on display until next month, October 5^th.

Essays about Paris in Notes of a Native Son

  

 

 

Recently I opened Notes of a Native Son (originally published in 1955), by one of America's greatest writers, James Baldwin (1924 - 1987).  The Francophile in me made me turn first in this book of essays on life in Harlem, the protest novel, movies, and Americans abroad to the two essays about his experiences in Paris, France.  As I was reading Baldwin's Paris essays, I was thinking how sad that his early relationship with the City of Light could not have been more positive.  However, as a quote on the Fantastic Quotes page of this blog states, "Everyone develops his or her own personal relationship with Paris."

 

One of Baldwin's two Paris essays, “Equal in Paris” reveals the hard times he had with surviving, adjusting to life, and making friends during his first year in Paris.  In the stark realism of this essay about Baldwin’s personal experiences, there are mentions of various places he frequented, including the historically literary landmark, Café de Flore:

… for as soon as I was out of bed, I hopefully took notebook and fountain pen off to the upstairs room of the Flore, where I consumed rather a lot of coffee, and as evening approached …

There is a general mention of the cafés of St. Germain des Près:

… in one of the cafés of St. Germain des Près, I was discovered by this New Yorker and only because we found ourselves in Paris we immediately established the illusion that we had been fast friends back in the good old U.S.A.

The Gare St. Lazare and Ile de la Cité are also referenced in "Equal in Paris."

The other Paris essay in Notes of a Native Son is titled “Encounter on the Seine:  Black Meets Brown,” which speaks to the differences between Africans’ and American Negroes’ experiences in Paris, based upon the differences in their histories.  Places such as Chez Inez, La Sorbonne, and the Place de la Concorde are mentioned in this essay.  
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*Note:  Baldwin's personal relationship with Paris, France, eventually became better; for he lived in the South of France for most of his later life, and he died in Saint-Paul-de-Vence.