January 2011
2 posts
AfriCOBRA Special to air February 27, 8:00PM/7:00C...
On Sunday February 27th in honor of Black History Month TV Land pays tribute to the art and artists of AfriCOBRA, a group of Chicago-based artists who create images that affirm and uplift the Black community. The inspiring special is comprised of contemporary interviews with the AfriCOBRA artists, enhanced displays of their artwork and an engaging and animated history of the group, which continues...
TV Land Honors the Artists of AfriCOBRA
In Chicago 1968, amid a tide of social change and political upheaval, a group of artists came together and began to define a uniquely black aesthetic in visual arts. They sought to make art that spoke directly to the needs, aspirations and experiences of black America, and that celebrated what was beautiful and heroic about black culture.
The seed of what would become the AfriCOBRA collective...
February 2010
3 posts
Jeff Donaldson
Jeff Donaldson from AFRICOBRA on Vimeo.
AfriCOBRA founder Jeff Donaldson was born in Pine Bluff, Ark. in 1932. He received a BA in studio art from the University of Arkansas, Pine Bluff in 1954, after establishing the school’s first arts major. He studied under John Howard, who had been a student of Harlem Renaissance painter Hale Woodruff and nurtured Donaldson’s interest in Afrocentric...
Wadsworth Jarrell
Founding AfriCOBRA member Wadsworth Jarrell was born in 1929 in Albany, Ga. and moved to Chicago in the mid-1950s. He attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he was awarded a BFA in 1958. As a member of the Organization for Black American Culture (OBAC), he helped execute the famous “Wall of Respect” outdoor mural on the South Side of Chicago in 1967. That same year he married...
Jae Jarrell
Born in Cleveland, Elaine “Jae” Jarrell attended Bowling Green State University in Ohio before moving to Chicago. She attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the late 1950s and early 1960s. She married artist Wadsworth Jarrell in 1967 and with him helped form what became the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists (AfriCOBRA) in 1968. Jae was a gifted clothing designer and...
January 2010
7 posts
Napoleon Jones-Henderson
Napoleon Jones-Henderson was born in Chicago in 1943. He was awarded a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1971, and pursued graduate studies at Northern Illinois University in 1974. In 2005, he received a MFA from the Mount Royal School of Art. He has been an active member of AfriCOBRA since 1969 and is the longest standing member of the group.
During the formative years of...
Carolyn Lawrence
Painter Carolyn Lawrence grew up in Houston and received a degree in education from the University of Texas in Austin in 1961. She started teaching in Gary, Ind. immediately after graduation, and then went on to complete her MA in art education at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago.
Lawrence was a member of the Organization for Black American Culture (OBAC) and took part in the...
Michael D. Harris
Michael Harris is an associate professor of art history at Emory University and also serves as the consulting curator for the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Art and Culture in Charlotte, NC. Previously, Harris was an associate professor of African and African-American art history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for 11 years. In spring 2004, he served as the...
Howard Mallory
Howard Mallory is a sculptor and ceramic artist who joined AfriCOBRA in 1971 and exhibited with the group during their Studio Museum in Harlem exhibition in 1971 and in their Howard University exhibition of 1973. Mallory studied at the Illinois Institute of Technology, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Texas Western College. Early in his career he worked as a instructor in ceramics...
Barbara Jones-Hogu
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 a MS with a concentration in printmaking from the Institute of Design at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago in 1970.
Jones-Hogu is an influential artist associated with the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. As a...
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