Frank Jones
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Untitled
Signed with prisoner number 114591. Executed circa 1966. Colored pencil on paper, 57.5 x 57.5 cm.
Provenance
Acquired by the previous owner in Dallas in 1966.
Artist
Self-taught, African American artist Frank Jones was born in 1900 in Clarksville, Red River County, in the northernmost corner of East Texas. Jones began drawing in 1964 while serving a life sentence for murder at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville. Jones maintained his innocence, but was incarcerated for most of his adult life. His drawing materials were stubs of red and blue accountant's pens and sheets of writing paper from the bin in the prison office where he worked. Later, as his drawings gained attention inside and outside the prison, he was given better paper and new colored pencils. Jones experimented with other colors, but preferred red and blue, which he said represented fire and smoke.
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