#AfriCOBRA
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womensartbluesky.bsky.social
Black Children Keep Your Spirits Free, 1972, by Carolyn Mims Lawrence, US artist, founding member of AfriCOBRA #womensart
August 14, 2026 at 5:37 PM
womensartbluesky.bsky.social
Unite (First State), 1969 screenprint by Barbara Jones-Hogu of the artists' collective AfriCOBRA, reflecting the political power of printmaking #womensart
Print feating a crowd of Black subjects with raised fists against a backdrop of the text "Unite"
June 15, 2025 at 4:12 PM
womensartbluesky.bsky.social
Unite (First State), 1969 (screenprint) by artist Barbara Jones-Hogu, a member of the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC) and co-fouder of the artists' collective AfriCOBRA #womensart #BlackHistoryMonth US
Print showing the upper half of a group of Black activists with fists raised against a backdrop of diagonal text with the repeated word 'Unite'
October 8, 2025 at 8:11 AM
peterhuestis.bsky.social
Superb radical printmaker Barbara Jones-Hogu, founder of the AfriCOBRA artists' collective, was born on this date in 1938. Land Where My Father Died, screenprint on gold paper, 1968:
April 17, 2026 at 12:03 PM
mckiesdjlounge.bsky.social
Neon Row (1958) by Wadsworth Jarrell, who later cofounded AfriCOBRA collective.
This is a glimpse of Cottage Grove looking south from 63rd Street. Artist's own collection.
Visible in this painting: Tivoli Theater showing The Big Country (from 1958), McKie's Disc Jockey Show Lounge, Strand Hotel, Grand Ballroom, Basin Street East, Vinsbergs Furniture, Stotland's Furniture, Madam Gray palmist, Prevue Lounge and the gas station just next door to the Stotland's building.
February 13, 2026 at 9:22 PM
eyeartu.bsky.social
Black Children Keep Your Spirits Free, 1972
by Carolyn Mims Lawrence 🇺🇸 founding member of AfriCOBRA
August 18, 2026 at 1:54 PM
mdstamper.bsky.social
“Wives of Shango” by Jeff Donaldson (American) - Watercolor with mixed media on paper / 1969 - Brooklyn Museum (New York) #WomenInArt #1960sArt #artText #art #JeffDonaldson #Donaldson #Yoruba #BrooklynMuseum #BlackArtsMovement #BlueskArt #BlackArtist #BlackArt #AfricanAmericanArtist #AfriCOBRA
American artist Jeff Donaldson’s title invokes Shango, a ruler of the Oyo empire and a major Yoruba spiritual figure associated with thunder, lightning, power, and justice. The three strong women represent his wives: Oshun, Oba, and Oya who fought beside him. Donaldson reimagines them in the language of Black pride and liberation in 1969. They are not distant mythic figures, but modern, self-possessed women whose beauty, dignity, and readiness suggest spiritual authority as well as political power. They connect Yoruba memory to Black self-determination during the Black Arts Movement, making the painting a vision of women as protectors, cultural anchors, and agents of resistance. The three Black women stand close together, like a shared monument. Their skin is modeled in deep browns, amber, copper, and gold, and the watercolor surface flickers with warm oranges, reds, and yellows, making the whole composition feel radiant and heat-filled. All three wear natural Afro hairstyles that expand their silhouettes with pride and presence. The woman at left turns her face outward in profile, wearing a pink-orange dress, an ankh pendant, and a belt of bullets slung low across her hips. A long firearm hangs vertically beside her shoulder. The central figure wears white, a necklace of large beads, and a cross pendant. The woman in profile at right, in a yellow dress with patterned trim, holds an open fan. Donaldson presents them not as passive muses but as dignified, alert, and formidable women. Painted just after Donaldson helped found AfriCOBRA in Chicago, the work reflects his commitment to a proudly Black, community-centered aesthetic that celebrated beauty, power, and African diasporic connection. Rather than placing women at the margins of revolution, he centers them as intellectual, spiritual, and political equals. The glowing palette intensifies the sense that these women feel iconic and almost sanctified like a vision of Black resilience and sovereignty.
March 10, 2026 at 7:52 PM
jimprov.sendusyourmoney.com
Jeff Donaldson (1980)
"Victory in Zimbabwe" mixed media on cardboard ----- [from the Smithsonian American Art Museum] ----- Jeff Donaldson played a pivotal role in founding the artists' collective AfriCOBRA in Chicago in 1968. He then continued as an artist in Washington, DC, where he became a professor, gallery director, and eventually dean at Howard University. Victory in Zimbabwe displays many hallmarks of AfriCOBRA aesthetics: symmetrical design, rhythmic pattern, and Afrocentric imagery. It also highlights Donaldson's unique practice of working with corrugated cardboard, a method he developed in the mid-1970s. By exposing the ribs of the cardboard and cutting and coloring intricate patterns in the material, he created an exuberant work celebrating Zimbabwe in the year it formally became independent from British rule.
January 11, 2026 at 4:45 PM
laurajg.bsky.social
New Year’s Eve! Time to party! By Chicago artist, educator, and filmmaker Barbara Jones-Hogu (1938-2017), a founding member of the artist collective AfriCOBRA, "When Styling," 1973, screenprint. As a print it appears in collections both public & private. #art #blackartists #womenartists More in ALT.
A colorful depiction of a black man and woman in what look like “go to the disco” clothes. Words written around them read: “When styling think of self-determination-liberation.” Self-Determination (Kujichagulia), is one of the 7 Principles of Kwanzaa. More on the artist: “Hogu helped co-found AfriCOBRA, an artist collective with Jeff Donaldson (1932-2004), Wadsworth Jarrell, Jae Jarrell, and Gerald Williams. (Donaldson and Wadsworth Jarrell were active in OBAC, too.) Initially called COBRA, then African COBRA, the group settled on the name AfriCOBRA, which stands for African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists. The collective focused on positive, powerful, and uplifting images of black people.” ~ Victoria L. Valentine, “Chicago Artist Barbara Jones-Hogu, a Founding Member of AfriCOBRA, Has Died,” Culture Type, Nov 21, 2017.
December 31, 2025 at 4:41 PM
robertsiegelman.bsky.social
t.co/yf5PBnKB5x?s...
#napoleonjoneshenderson #art #artist #AfriCobra #blacklivesmatter #BLM

RIP

Napoleon Jones-Henderson
1943-2025

African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists
Goodbye To Revered Boston Artist Napoleon Jones-Henderson – WONDERLAND
t.co
December 8, 2025 at 5:59 PM
mdot1.bsky.social
Ok so I'm into art and (some) books...I got this for my birthday..this one right here is a must get for my art people @jeniusj.blacksky.app @thatgirlbamz.bsky.social @hnorthington.bsky.social @maintainin.bsky.social

This is the video I watched that piqued my interest

youtu.be/ro9uieZa8w4?...
AfriCOBRA (the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists) is an African-American artists' collective formed in Chicago, Illinois, in 1968.
September 22, 2026 at 3:29 PM
mikesorgatzart.bsky.social
kavigupta.com/artists/31-w... #antiquesroadshow
Wadsworth Jarrell
Wadsworth Jarrell Exhibitions: James Little, Wadsworth Jarrell, Mickalene Thomas: , Whitney Museum of American Art | New York, New York, 25 Sep 2024 - 9 Feb 2025; AFRICOBRA: I Am Somebody , The Penins...
kavigupta.com
April 8, 2025 at 12:18 AM
kwadwodeterville.bsky.social
The genius of painter Jeff Donaldson and the AfriCobra collective. #BlackVisualCulture #Art
Jeff Donaldson and the Making of a Black Aesthetic - KOLUMN Magazine
Long before museums fully caught up, Donaldson was building an art world rooted in community, history, and unapologetic Black beauty.
www.kolumnmagazine.com
March 21, 2026 at 8:10 AM
propcazhpm.bsky.social
The African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists (AfriCOBRA) was founded in 1968 by Jeff Donaldson, Barbara Jones-Hogu, Wadsworth Jarrell and Gerald Williams. Their work is known for intent to uplift African diaspora and use of "Kool Aid" colors.

Revolutionary (Angela Davis), 1971
Wadsworth Jarrell,
A mosaic of multiple colors used to paint oortrait of Angela Y Davis giving a speech. "The power of communal action is here expressed through a chromatic swirl of individual colors that coalesce into a unified image of the radical activist and intellectual Angela Davis. Davis’s militant clothing—complete with bullet cartridges—was modeled after the Revolutionary Suit designed by artist Jae Jarrell, Wadsworth’s wife."
February 2, 2024 at 3:41 AM
art-institute.bsky.social
Unite (AfriCOBRA), by Barbara Jones-Hogu
American, 1938-2017
1971

More info: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/185757
Barbara Jones-Hogu American, 1938-2017, Unite (AfriCOBRA), Color print of ten African American people raising their fists. They stand in two diagonal lines that converge in the middle. In the background, "unite" is repeated diagonally in yellow, purple, blue, and red block letters.
October 23, 2025 at 1:32 AM
art-institute.bsky.social
Unite (AfriCOBRA), by Barbara Jones-Hogu
American, 1938-2017
1971

More info: https://www.artic.edu/artworks/185757
Barbara Jones-Hogu American, 1938-2017, Unite (AfriCOBRA), Color print of ten African American people raising their fists. They stand in two diagonal lines that converge in the middle. In the background, "unite" is repeated diagonally in yellow, purple, blue, and red block letters.
December 3, 2025 at 6:21 AM
penvsswordmagazine.bsky.social
Music and Images - Art and Soul

promisesproject.net/pen-vs-sword...

#hyperrealism #blobism #ecologicalart #dada #hurufiyya #popart #colourfield #africobra #destijl #psychedelic #soundart #tropicalia

#art #artist #books #artwork #artcollector #artandsoul #pvsmagazine #gallery #artsky #booksky
October 19, 2025 at 3:52 PM
penvsswordmagazine.bsky.social
We have 169 curated #books celebrating creativity and expression, exploring #art, #design, #architecture and #culture.

https://uk.bookshop.org/lists/art-and-soul

#colourfield 
#hyperrealism 
#blobism 
#ecologicalart 
#hurufiyya
#dada 
#destijl
#psychedelic
#soundart
#africobra
#popart
#tropicalia
October 13, 2025 at 2:04 PM
laurajg.bsky.social
Nelson Stevens (1938-2022), “Uhuru,” screenprint, photo: Swann Auction Galleries Oct 03, 2024. As a print, it is held in more than one collection, both public and private. More info in ALT. #BlackHistoryMonth #blackartist #blackart
From the Brooklyn Museum, which owns one of the prints: ‘With this work, the Brooklyn Museum debuts the recent acquisition of a significant collection of artworks from the Black Arts Movement, considered the cultural wing of the Black Power Movement in the late 1960s and 1970s. Nelson Stevens was a member of the Chicago-based collective AfriCOBRA (African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists). AfriCOBRA used what they called “coolade colors” to create empowering images of African Americans—which they deemed “Superreal images for Superreal people.” Here a woman with an afro (then a highly political hairstyle) casts her gaze upward, as if envisioning a day when African Americans would be truly free. The word uhuru means “freedom” in Swahili, and the choice of language signaled the group’s Afrocentric politics.’
February 22, 2025 at 9:06 PM
sambaudinette.bsky.social
(Two works by members of AfriCobra and the Black Arts Movement—Gerald Williams and Barbara Jones-Hogu)
December 7, 2024 at 7:38 PM
othemts.bsky.social
Several years ago I was leading a walking tour of Roxbury Highlands and was talking about Napoleon Jones-Henderson's house (a Greek Revival house dating back to the 1840s) and he came out on to his porch and addressed my group. He will be missed.

www.bostonartreview.com/read/remembe...
Remembering Napoleon Jones-Henderson
Remembering the AfriCOBRA member whose mastery of weaving and material innovation was inseparable from his long-standing commitment to teaching and supporting emerging artists.
www.bostonartreview.com
December 10, 2025 at 8:04 PM
bethn8r.bsky.social
Today’s Foundations lecture focussed on the AfriCOBRA collective (yay Chicago and SAIC!). I was knocked sideways by this amazing piece by Jae Jarrell, “Revolutionary Suit”. Just…WOW.

www.brooklynmuseum.org/en-GB/object...
Revolutionary Suit
Two piece suit: salt and pepper wool tweed with incorporated suede bandolier containing painted wooden faux bullets: A-line skirt with zipper and jacket with ¾ length bell sleeves. Jacket and skirt l...
www.brooklynmuseum.org
March 5, 2025 at 1:19 PM
tmmc.bsky.social
Revolutionary (Angela Davis) by Wadsworth A. Jarrell,1971 / Acrylic and mixed media on canvas / 64”x51” / Brooklyn Museum, NYC
schristywolfe.com/2020/02/22/b...

Co-founder of Chicago-based black arts movement called COBRA, which later became AfriCOBRA.
February 22, 2024 at 5:42 AM