"Joe" [Joseph John] Jones
Missouri, (1909-1963)
Missouri Wheat Farmers, 1938
lithograph from an edition of 250
signed in pencil, framed.

Son of a humble house painter, Joe Jones was born and raised in St. Louis and originally worked alongside his father as a house painter himself. He had a gift for painting more than houses so he left for NYC to pursue the arts when in his late 20s. Both in STL and New York he created poignant scenes of American life during the time of the Great Depression and beyond, and his work is associated with social realism and social justice. His life and work is also associated with the St. Louis Artists’ Guild, John Reed Clubs, and the Sainte-Geneviève Artists Guild, among others; and his work is collected by the National Gallery of Art, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Whitney Museum of American Art and the St. Louis Art Museum.

Here Jones depicts two young male farmers wearing straw hats, overalls and farm boots as they stand in a wheat field tying up bags of wheat that will then be ready to take to market. Because this work was made during the Great Depression, Jones’ depiction of wheat is significant. His wheat of course signifies bread and food more broadly—it therefore stands for survival and for life itself across America in the 1930s. Jones was aware of the poignancy of his subject matter and dedicated much time and effort to his depictions of wheat and the farmers who dedicated their lives to growing it for the rest of the nation. Jones painted wheat as subject matter in at least 5 major WPA federal murals in Kansas, Arkansas and Missouri; and his first important painting shown in New York was entitled “Painting of Wheatfields.” Jones brought the intensity of poverty and famine he witnessed in the Midwest to a national audience with this lithograph and with all of his work about the importance of grain. For more on Jones’ fascinating and intense work, see Walker & Turk, _Joe Jones: Radical Painter of the American Scene_.
10 x 8 inches