Kellie Jones facts for kids

Kellie Jones was born in 1959. She is an American art historian and a curator. A curator is someone who chooses and organizes art for museums. She is a Professor at Columbia University. She teaches about Art History and African American Studies.

In 2016, she received a special award called a MacArthur Fellowship. This award is given to talented people who show great creativity. In 2023, she was chosen to be part of the American Philosophical Society. This is a very old and respected group of thinkers.

About Kellie Jones

Kellie Jones is the daughter of two famous poets. Her parents were Hettie Jones and Amiri Baraka. She went to Amherst College and earned her first degree in 1981. Later, she continued her studies at Yale University. She received her Ph.D. from Yale in 1999.

Her Work in Art

Kellie Jones studies art from different cultures. She focuses on artists from the African Diaspora and African American artists. She also looks at artists from Latin America. She is interested in how art is shown in museums today.

She has written for many art magazines. These include NKA, Artforum, and Flash Art. Kellie Jones has also worked as a curator for more than 30 years. This means she has helped put together many art shows.

Kellie Jones has a half-brother, Ras Baraka. He is the mayor of Newark, New Jersey. She also has a half-sister, Dominique di Prima.

Awards and Special Honors

Kellie Jones has received many awards for her work. These awards recognize her important contributions to art.

• 2005: She won the David C. Driskell Prize.
• 2012: She was an Artist-in-Residence at the McColl Center for Art + Innovation.
• 2013: She received a grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation.
• 2013: She was a Terra Foundation Fellow.
• 2016: She received the MacArthur Fellows Program award.
• 2018: She won the College Art Association Award for Excellence in Diversity.
• 2019: She became a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Art Shows She Organized

Kellie Jones has organized or helped organize many art exhibits. Here are some of the important shows she worked on:

• Basquiat: This show was about the artist Basquiat. It was at the Brooklyn Museum in New York in 2005.
• Energy / Experimentation: Black Artists and Abstraction, 1964-1980: This exhibit was at The Studio Museum in Harlem in 2006. It showed abstract art by Black artists.
• Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles, 1960–1980: This show traveled to several places. It was at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles in 2011. It also went to MOMA PS1 in New York and the Williams College Museum of Art in Massachusetts.
• Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties: This exhibit was at the Brooklyn Museum in 2014. It showed art related to the Civil Rights movement.

Books by Kellie Jones

Kellie Jones has written several books about art. These books share her research and ideas.

• Jones, Kellie (2002). Lorna Simpson. London: Phaidon Press. ISBN: 0714840386
• Jones, Kellie (2011). EyeMinded: Living And Writing Contemporary Art. Durham: Duke University Press. ISBN: 978-0822348733
• Jones, Kellie (2011). Now Dig This!: Art & Black Los Angeles, 1960-1980. Los Angeles: Hammer Museum. ISBN: 978-3791351360
• Jones, Kellie (2017). South of Pico: African American Artists in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s. Durham: Duke University Press. ISBN: 978-0822361640