Designing a New Tradition

In Designing a New Tradition, Rebecca VanDiver presents a fresh perspective on the art and career of Los Mailou Jones. Considering the importance of Africa for Joness work and examining the broader roles played by class, gender, and politics in constructions of African American art histories as a whole, VanDiver makes a convincing case for Joness lasting place in American art history. VanDiver repositions Joness work within the canon of American art, situating the artists production within the larger cultural and aesthetic debates of the twentieth century, including modernism, abstraction, the Harlem Renaissance, feminism, Ngritude, and Pan-Africanism. In doing so, VanDiver reveals one of Joness most significant contributions to American art: the development of a composite black aesthetic that negotiates African, American, and European artistic traditions to reflect the increasingly fragmented nature of twentieth-century black identity and diasporic experiences. Tracing Joness aesthetic transformations along a biographical arc, VanDiver offers a new framework for thinking about the connection between America and Africa and the role of the African diaspora in the creation of African American artistic identity. Accessibly written and filled with fascinating anecdotes about Joness life and career, her many acquaintances, and the challenges she faced as a black woman artist working in the twentieth century, this book makes a singular contribution to a new and expanded art-historical canon.