Arts Agenda - Integrating art

Paul Jones collection leaves Atlanta for Delaware

If you missed The Paul Jones Collection exhibition at the Marietta Cobb Museum of Art in 1999, then you’ll have to go to the University of Delaware’s museum to see it. The Atlanta collector announced this month that he’s giving the lion’s share of his art to that institution.
Why is this eclectic, 1,000-piece collection of works by African-American artists including Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Jacob Lawrence and P.H. Polk, to name just a few, leaving Atlanta? Because local art institutions could not meet the Atlanta collector’s requirements that the works be integrated with existing American art collections and that some portion of the collection be on exhibit continuously.
Born in Bessemer, Ala., Jones has been collecting art for more than 30 years. He was exposed to fine art in the Bronx and in Washington, D.C., where he attended elementary and junior high school and experienced his first gallery and museum shows. When he became a collector, he initially chose paintings, prints and sculptures, later adding documentary and fine art photography.
Although Jones primarily collects works by African-Americans, his collection also includes works by Atlanta artists including Lucinda Bunnen, Cheryl Goldsleger and Chris Verene, as well.
In seeking a permanent home for the collection, Jones was looking for an institution where it would receive critical attention from scholars. “I’ve wanted to see us move toward weaving African-American art into American art history,” says Jones, whose involvement with the University of Delaware goes back eight years. In addition to lending the institution pieces from his collection for past exhibitions, Jones served on the school’s Visiting Committee for the Arts.
Though Atlanta’s historically black institutions, including Spelman and Morehouse, were not able to meet his requirements for acquiring the collection, Jones was able to secure a commitment from the University of Delaware that it would develop a collaborative relationship with those schools.
“I’m very disappointed that we weren’t able to find a comparable environment that was suited to his ambitions for the collection,” says Kitty Farnham, a trustee at the Atlanta History Center and the High Museum. “It would have been nice if his collection could have stayed here, but Paul was very interested in the academic side. He didn’t want it isolated as an African-American collection; he wanted it part of an American art studies program. He did some good research and found a good home for it.”
Rick Beard, a curator at the History Center agrees. “The collection didn’t seem to fit anywhere here in Atlanta. Paul’s intent is to mainstream this material, to get it into the canon of American art. What he’s saying is that these people were important artists and they deserve to be looked at in the same context as other American artists. That argues for an institution like University of Delaware that has a history of teaching and publishing with a focus on American art.”
Tom Southall, curator of photography for the High Museum, expressed interest in some of Jones’ P.H. Polk photographs (an important aspect of the collection that is not included in his gift to the University of Delaware). “I think Paul has done some wonderful collecting. His collecting of African-American and young emerging photographers has been imaginative and diligent.”
As to the large body of artwork that heads to Delaware this year, the University of Delaware is more than pleased. The bequest will become the centerpiece of the university’s new Center for the Study of American Material Culture. Thomas M. DiLorenzo, dean of the College of Arts and Science, explains that “the goal of the center is to bring scholars and students from many different disciplines together to spark a dynamic collaboration. The Paul R. Jones Collection will provide an excellent opportunity to do just that.”
Says Jones, “Response to my gift has been overwhelmingly positive. I see a new day in art history, conservation, art, museum studies and black-American studies. Finally, a rightful place, long overdue, for art by artists of color.”