The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of October 1, 2023

Unite

1969, printed 1971

Barbara Jones-Hogu

(American, 1938–2017)

America

Color screenprint

Image: 56.9 x 76.7 cm (22 3/8 x 30 3/16 in.); Sheet: 64.7 x 84.1 cm (25 1/2 x 33 1/8 in.)

Karl B. Goldfield Trust 2021.14

© Barbara Jones-Hogu

Edition: Edition of 100

Location

not on view

Fun Fact

Barbara Jones-Hogu began to work primarily in screenprint, the technique used here, after the tools she used to make woodcuts were stolen while she was a student in Chicago.

Description

Barbara Jones-Hogu was a founding member of AfriCOBRA (African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists), a Chicago-based artists’ collective founded in 1968 to forge a distinctly Black form of contemporary art. Unite is among the group’s most recognizable images and features a crowd with fists raised in the Black Power salute. Jones-Hogu was struck by the potential of this simple gesture to unify. An accomplished and innovative screenprinter, she produced the layered forms of color and text for each impression herself.

Inscriptions

Inscription

signed, in black ink, at lower right; stamped, in black ink, at lower left, with the AfriCOBRA symbol, price and the date: Print $10 Copyright © 1971

Provenance
1971-2010
Studio of the artist [1938-2017], Chicago
about 2010-2021
(Lusenhop Fine Art, Chicago, [now Cleveland], sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH)
2021-
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Exhibition history

Women in Print: Recent Acquisitions. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (January 16-June 19, 2022).

Source URL: https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2021.14