Joe Jones: Radical Painter of the American Scene explores the work of the St. Louis–born artist Joe Jones (1909–1963) during the Great Depression. When we initiated our exploration of this subject in 2006, the American economy had begun to teeter in the face of the high number of failing subprime mortgages, creating a national real-estate crisis of epic proportion. By 2008 the economy was in freefall; economists called the situation the country’s worst financial catastrophe since the 1930s. These circumstances added a new level of significance to our undertaking.Though separated by nearly seventy years, the similar political and economic struggles of then and now exposed the ways rampant greed and fiscal malfeasance endanger the American dream, especially for the nation’s poor and powerless. Taken together, the paintings, drawings, lithographs, and photographs Jones made between 1930 and 1942 provide a portrait of a country wrestling with an economic disaster that displaced urban and rural poor from their homes and took away their livelihoods. A Communist and social activist, Jones believed that his art could effect real political change by exposing the social, labor, and racial injustices that underlay corporate and government policies, hurting American workers everywhere. In the poverty and labor strife of the Heartland, he found a subject that fed his activist sensibility.

　　Despite the fame and critical acclaim Jones enjoyed in his lifetime, no book-length consideration of his career has ever been undertaken, and no major exhibition of his work has occurred since those organized to honor his memory at the time of his death. For decades afterward, his name most often appeared as a brief reference in discussions of social realist art of the 1930s or anecdotally in accounts of the New Deal art programs of the era.

　　Karal Ann Marling first encountered the art of Joe Jones in preparing her 1982 book, Wall-to-Wall America: A Cultural History of Post-Office Murals in the Great Depression. In 1987 she went on to produce an article and an essay in an exhibition catalogue celebrating the acquisition of Jones’s 1937 murals for the 905 Liquor Store, St. Louis, by the Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University, Milwaukee. These were the first focused explorations of Jones’s career to grapple with the primary sources relating to his art. In both texts, Marling traced Jones’s development, including the shift he made from being a politically engaged Communist artist to one who sought and profited from corporate commissions.

　　In 1991 Louisa Iarocci described the arc of the artist’s career in “The Changing American Landscape: The Art and Politics of Joe Jones,” published in Gateway Heritage, the Missouri History Museum’s journal. She emphasized his reliance on regional subjects and on the enduring importance for him of the American landscape, concluding that his turn from political subjects did not indicate that his political beliefs were superficial. In fact many social realists distanced themselves from radical politics at the end of the 1930s, with the growth of fascism in Europe and world war looming on the horizon. Jones has also received attention from writers interested in the art colony of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, with which he was briefly affiliated.

　　The most nuanced examination of Jones in the 1930s and 1940s is that of Andrew Hemingway. In his monumental, pathbreaking 2002 study, Artists on the Left: American Artists and the Communist Movement, 1926–1956, Hemingway examined Jones’s work in relation to his identity as a Communist artist, arguing that even his later scenes of agricultural bounty resonate with leftist ideals, such as collective farming and the primary importance of labor.

　　Our project builds upon the work of these scholars. Jones’s prodigious output during the period in which he achieved national critical acclaim is examined from five distinct perspectives that knit together his aesthetic development, political activism, local identity, and larger art-world impact.

　　In her essay “Joseph Jones: A Conservative Modern in St. Louis,” Janeen Turk discusses Jones’s earliest work in the context of the St. Louis art world of the early 1930s: the city’s art museum, galleries, newspaper critics, specialized art publications, and patrons. She analyzes Jones’s first successes in his hometown, when he was clearly responding to the strong local preference for a temperate form of modernism.

　　In “Joe Jones: Worker-Artist,” M. Melissa Wolfe focuses on Jones’s awakening to issues of labor and racial injustice and how he addressed them in his work and actions. She provides in-depth analysis of Jones’s first political painting, American Justice (cat. 31), and the recently rediscovered mural The Struggle in the South (see cat. 39), which constitute the artist’s most charged and direct representations of racial and class conflict.

　　In “Joe Jones and the Dust Bowl: A Search for Social Significance,” Andrew Walker treats the artist’s leaststudiedwork of this period: his Dust Bowl–related paintings, drawings, prints, and photographs. Walker explicates the ways in which this material satisfied Jones’s quest for compelling and relevant subjects that allowed him to further his engagement with social and economic issues affecting the nation’s poor. In the Dust Bowl, Jones found a theme that could convey protest and demand change.

　　“Joe Jones in Ste. Genevieve,” by Kevin Sharp, investigates the artist’s involvement with the Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, art colony and summer art school, of which he served as a director for a season. In addition to exploring Jones’s relationship to his colleagues and their work, Sharp evaluates the appeal to Jones of the colony as a site where he could further his desire to establish himself as a leading artist of the Midwest. Debra Bricker Balken’s “Joe Jones’s New York Interactions” examines Jones’s experiences in New York as both a part-time and permanent resident (after 1937). In the nation’s art capital, Jones struggled to find his place within polemical discussions such as regional versus national identity and socio-political intent versus formal concerns. Balken looks at Jones’s solo exhibitions in New York galleries, his successes and failures with the city’s museums, his reviewers in both leftist and mainstream publications, and his involvement in artists’ activist organizations. The essay section ends with an overview by Andrew Walker and Janeen Turk of Jones’s post-office murals. We hope that this catalogue and the exhibition it accompanies accomplish our goal: to tell the story of one of Missouri’s most important twentieth-century artists and convey his significant contribution to American art during the 1930s and early 1940s.

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　　Joe Jones: Radical Painter of the American Scene has involved the assistance and collaboration of many individuals in museums, archives, historical museums, galleries, and auction houses, as well as devoted collectors who have sustained Jones’s reputation through the purchase of his work.

　　At the Saint Louis Art Museum, Brent R. Benjamin, Director, offered constant support throughout the genesis and implementation of the project. His dedication to Jones as one of St. Louis’s unsung art heroes initiated the process that resulted in this show and book. We are grateful to Kevin Sharp, Executive Director at the Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, for giving the exhibition a second venue. He has long been an advocate of Jones’s oeuvre and has recognized the importance of sharing the artist’s contributions with his community.

　　Chief among those who helped to conceive and tell Jones’s story are our coauthors, Debra Bricker Balken, Kevin Sharp, and M. Melissa Wolfe, whose essays present new scholarship in frameworks that reflect the writers’ significant expertise in their field. We are very grateful to them for their hard work and belief in the project.Special thanks go to Bryna R. Campbell, who worked tirelessly to compile a very detailed chronology of Jones’s life; and to Emily Allred, our tenacious research assistant, who dug deep into all of the sources to make discovery after discovery.

　　A project of this nature would not be possible without the assistance of those who knew Jones, who studied with him, and whose relatives were early patrons. We are very grateful to the members of Jones’s family who assisted us in our research and understanding of the artist’s character and career: Katharine Allen, James and Karen Jones, Raya Koren and Peter Jones, Shirley A. Jones, and Kami Mulzet. We also appreciate the support of the family of Jones’s most faithful St. Louis supporter, Elizabeth Green: John Green, Bill Lindsley, Carolyn Malecek, and Ann Verdi. Jones’s student Martyl (Schweig Langsdorf), an accomplished artist in her own right, offered memories of Jones’s personality and his dedication to art with grace and forthrightness. We further appreciate the assistance of George and Dolores Friesen, Martin Schweig, Judith and Ernest Stix, and Tim and Ruth Wood, all of whom had unique perspectives on Jones based on stories passed down by family members.

　　Inevitably, a recovery project of this scale depended on an array of Jones scholars and enthusiasts who have helped keep his story alive. Without the groundbreaking research of Karal Ann Marling, Professor Emeritus of Art History at the University of Minnesota, our work would not have been possible. Professors Andrew Hemingway (University College of London) and Angela Miller (Washington University, St. Louis) have offered insight and support along the way. Carrying Jones’s torch from a more personal perspective are Susan Barrett, Hunt Bonan, Robert Dick, Rory Ellinger, Lloyd Greif, John Horseman, Scott Kerr, Jonathan and David Kodner, James and Virginia Moffett, Elliot Nelson, Jack Parker, Kara Pollnow, Jason Schoen, Rex Sinquefield, Catherine Spaeth, Robert Ventimiglia, and Deedee Wigmore, along with others who contacted us to offer insights, recollections, and collections related to Jones’s career in St. Louis.

　　We would also like to thank those who provided valuable research support and advice: Eric Baumgartner, Hirschl & Adler; Cecilia H. Chin, Smithsonian Institution Libraries; Barb Driesner, Edwardsville Public Library; Linda Honeyman, Seneca Downtown Impact, Inc.; Emily Jones, Woodstock Artists Association and Museum; Mary Kiffer, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation; Anna Kirchner, Ste. Genevieve Art Guild; Todd D. Smith, Farmers Bank & Trust; the staff of the St. Louis Public Library; and others too numerous to name here.

　　At the Saint Louis Art Museum, many staff members contributed to the success of this project. Carolyn Schmidt, Deputy Director; Linda Thomas, Assistant Director for Exhibitions and Collections; Bill Appleton, Assistant Director for Education and Public Programs; Sheila Manion, Acting Assistant Director for Development; and Jennifer Stoffel, Acting Assistant Director for Audience Development provided expertise and support on a number of levels. We are especially appreciative of our research team over the years: Emily Allred, Bryna R. Campbell, Rhonda Lally, Erika Rogers, Lauren Staub, and Elizabeth Wolfson. Many of the works in the exhibition required conservation treatment and benefitted from the skills of the museum’s Conservation Department members Paul Haner, Nancy Heugh, and Art Rogers. We are particularly grateful to Jeanette Fausz and her talented and dedicated staff in the Registrar’s Office, including Angie Carter, Natalie Musser, Ella Rothgangel, and Rachel Shoup Swiston. The distinctive design for the exhibition is due to our creative Design Department, headed by Philip Atkinson and including Jon Cournoyer, Lauri Kramer, and Nick Smith. In the Richardson Memorial Library, Norma Sindelar, Clare Vasquez, and Bryan Young spent much time finding obscure resources. The exhibition was expertly managed by Molly Perse and its interpretation by Louise Cameron. We were also pleased to be able to work with St. Louis–based photographer Jean Paul Torno.

　　Joe Jones: Radical Painter of the American Scene would not have been possible without the support of over forty lenders, both institutions and private collections. Their names are listed on page 13. We are immensely grateful to all of them for agreeing to part with works in order to share them with a broad, new audience. Among the private collectors, we must single out the exceptional generosity of Jeanne and Rex Sinquefield. Our colleagues at the lending institutions have earned our deepest gratitude: Louise Dompierre and Patrick Shaw Cable, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Ontario; Louis A. Zona, The Butler Institute of American Art; Deborah Gribbon and Mark Cole, The Cleveland Museum of Art; Nannette V. Maciejunes and M. Melissa Wolfe, Columbus Museum of Art; Christoph Heinrich and Timothy Stranding, Denver Art Museum; James Mundy and Mary-Kay Lombino, The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College; Walter Mason and Annemarie Sawkins, Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University; Michael E. Shapiro, High Museum of Art; Kathryn Thomas, Jennifer R. Clark, and Tom Dewey, Jefferson National Expansion Memorial; Andy Abbott, John Burroughs School; Jonathan and David Kodner, KodnerGallery; Sabine Eckmann, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University; Robert Archibald, Anne Woodhouse, Dennis Northcott, Molly Kodner, and Linda Landry, Missouri History Museum; Paul D. Schweizer, Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Museum of Art; Mary Sue Sweeney Price and Beth Venn, Newark Museum; James K. Ballinger, Phoenix Art Museum; Elizabeth Broun and Eleanor Harvey, Smithsonian AmericanArt Museum; John Hoover, Julie Dunn-Morton, and Deborah Cribbs, St. Louis MercantileLibrary at the University of Missouri–St. Louis; Brad Cushman and Linda Pine, University of Arkansas at Little Rock; Dona Bachman and Lori Huffman, The University Museum, Southern Illinois University Carbondale; Adam D. Weinberg and Barbara Haskell, Whitney Museum of American Art; KimberlyBergen, Marianne Lamonaca, and Cathy Leff, The Wolfsonian– Florida International University; and James A. Welu and William Rudolph, Worcester Art Museum.

　　We owe a debt of thanks for the editorial know-how and personal commitment of Susan F. Rossen, our tirelesseditor and advisor, who worked with us to find our voices and to ensure that we gave Jones the comprehensive treatment that he and his art deserve. She was ably assisted by Susan Weidemeyer. We thank our team at Marquand Books, Seattle, for managing the typesetting, design, and production of this book: Ed Marquand, President; Sara Billups, Media Manager; Jeremy Linden, Production Coordinator; Adrian Lucia, Managing Director; Keryn Means, Production Manager; Brynn Warriner, Managing Editor; and Jeff Wincapaw, Design Director. The book’s elegant design is by Zach Hooker; it was typeset by Marissa Meyer. We are also grateful to Pat Soden and Denise Clark at the University of Washington Press for their enthusiasm for Jones.

　　Finally we could not have persevered through the complicated process of rehabilitating Jones’s career without the moral support of our families, especially Paula Lupkin and Jason Turk.