JOE JONES 1909-1963 MISSOURI WHEAT FARMERS Measurements: 48.5 by 38in. Alternate Measurements: (123.2 by 96.5 cm) signed Joe Jones, l. r. oil on canvas Provenance: Private Collection, New York, circa 1930s By descent to the present owner Literature and References: Thomas Craven, A Treasury of American Prints: A Selection of One Hundred Etchings and Lithographs by the Foremost Living American Artists, New York, 1939, illustrated version of the painting as an etching, pl. 59 Note: Thomas Craven wrote in 1939, Joe Jones "was born in St. Louis where he still lives, in 1909--Joe Jones has for some years been one of the most excitedly discussed artists in America. Entirely self-taught, he won prizes at various exhibits in his early twenties, and in 1937 was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship. He has been hailed as a proletarian artist because of his exclusive interest in the lives and work of laborers, and because he is vocally a member of the Communist Party. His principal admirations in painting are, he says, 'El Greco, Titian, Daumier, Goya, Rembrandt, Rubens, Picasso, George Grosz, and Orozco.' In view of this extraordinary catholicity of taste, it is gratifying to discover in Mr. Jones himself an artist of considerable originality. "Missouri Wheat Farmers makes brilliant use, in building up very handsome design, of such paraphernalia of trade as a thick-soled shoe, a round straw hat and a crushed felt one, overalls and wheat bags. Extreme simplification of texture and outline, a brilliant use of light coming from one side and producing almost sculptural shadows on the other, a welcome absence of the underscoring from which so much 'proletarian' art suffers--in short, a willingness to let clearly envisioned and adeptly set down reality bring its own persuasions to bear--make Mr. Jones' comment on two men at rather dull work a beautiful picture to see" (A Treasury of American Prints: A Selection of One Hundred Etchings and Lithographs by the Foremost Living American Artists, New York, 1939, before pl. 59 .