Nell Choate Jones (1879-1981)

Nell Choate Jones was born in Hawkinsville, Georgia, the daughter of a former Confederate captain. When he died in 1884, the family moved to Brooklyn, New York, where she lived until her death at age 101. For many years Jones taught elementary school, but in the 1920s she began studying art, encouraged by her husband, the painter and etcher, Eugene A Jones. She studied at the Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn, and with Fred Boston, John Carlson and Ralph Johonnot. She and her husband exhibited jointly at Holt Gallery in 1927, and her impressionist scenes of France, Italy and Brooklyn won considerable acclaim. In 1929 she won a scholarship to the art school at Fontainbleau, France, where she spent a year, then studying in England before returning to the United States. Jones and her husband summered at the art colony of Woodstock, New York, and she spent time among the Quieres Indians of New Mexico. It was a return to her native Georgia in 1936, to bury her sister, that provided her with inspiration for the next two decades. Her paintings of the South are in an individualized, expressionist style, characterized by simplification of forms, rhythmic designs, and vibrant use of color for emotional effects. Jones exhibited throughout the United States in the 1940s and 1950s, as well as in Canada, France, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Greece and Japan. Her work is represented in many museums, including the High Museum in Atlanta and the Fort Worth Art Museum.

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