Anna Jones (monoprint)
Title/Subject: Anna Jones, in the series 19th Century Oberlin Women
Artist: Suzanne Benton (American, b. 1936)
Date: 1986
Type: monoprint with chine collé
Dimensions: 18 1/4" h. x 12 3/4" w.
Collection: Paintings, Prints, Drawings and other Framed Items (RG 40)
Anna Holland Jones (born Canada, 1855-1932) was an Oberlin College graduate of the class of 1875. Her father, James Monroe Jones, was among the earliest Black graduates of Oberlin College in 1849. She received an honorary Master of Arts from Oberlin and also from Wilberforce University in 1892. In 1893 Oberlin conferred upon her a Bachelor of Philosophy. Anna Jones never married; her career of forty years was devoted to teaching. She taught at Wilberforce University from 1885-92 and at Lincoln High School, Kansas City, Missouri from 1892-11. She was Principal and instructor in literature, history and zoology at Douglas High School in Kansas City from 1911 until family members removed to Monrovia, California and she resigned her post to join them.Jones was for four years President of the State Federation of Colored Women's Clubs of Missouri, and was a member and officer of the National Association of Colored Women. She pursued continuing education in the summers, at the University of Michigan, the University of Chicago, and the Michigan State Normal School in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Anna Jones enjoyed several coveted honors in education during her lifetime, chief among them serving as a representative to the Educational Congress in London, England in 1900 where she read a paper widely proclaimed for its merits.
Suzanne Benton is a native New Yorker who has shared her many-faceted art as a sculptor, mask performance artist, printmaker, painter, and workshop leader for over thirty years in thirty-one countries. She began her unique style of monoprint-making (one-of-a-kind prints) with Chine collé (glued paper collage) in 1983 while a resident artist in Koln, Germany.
The monoprint honoring Anna Jones, with its image from the photographic portrait of Jones above, is one of a series Benton produced in honor of the 150th anniversary of the start of coeducation at the college level in America, at Oberlin College, in 1837. Benton's daughter is also an Oberlin graduate. The works feature portraits of early women Oberlin College graduates from photographs in the Archives. The series, 19th Century Oberlin Women, was exhibited in Oberlin, and this is one of over a dozen of Benton's works purchased by or gifted to the College. Anna Jones was a gift of the artist. In 2019 the College commissioned Benton to produce a monoprint with a portrait of Mary Church Terrell, an Oberlin graduate in the class of 1884, for whom the College’s Main Library was named in 2018.
Sources
Anna Holland Jones student file, Graduates and Former Student Records (RG 28)
Archives Art Files
Suzanne Benton website, accessed 9/28/2020