Jeff Donaldson Biography Favorites Color All colors Food Black-eyed Peas Time of Year Anything but winter

Jeff Donaldson was an African American artist, art historian and critic who helped articulate the philosophy and aesthetics of the black arts movement in the United States. Born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, in 1932, Donaldson was three when his older brother started drawing. This encouraged him to start drawing cartoons and comic books, as well.

Donaldson's love of the arts continued, and upon enrolling in the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, he established the school's first arts major. Here, his lifelong interest in Afrocentric art was nurtured under the tutelage of John Howard, who mentored under the great Harlem Renaissance artist Hale Woodruff. After graduating with a M.F.A. from the Institute of Design of the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago, Donaldson obtained a Ph.D. in African and African American Art History from Northwestern University.

Through his involvement with the Organization of Black American Culture, a group Donaldson helped form in Chicago, he organized the visual arts workshop that painted the Wall of Respect in 1967. The mural celebrated significant African Americans and set in motion a movement of outdoor murals painted in U.S. cities throughout the 1970s. Along with Wadsorth Jarrell, Barbara Jones-Hogu and other African American artists, Donaldson founded AFRI-COBRA (an acronym for African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists) in Chicago in 1968. AFRI-COBRA established its objectives in developing new African American aesthetics and committing to the principles of social responsibility, involvement of artists in their local communities and promotion of pride in black self-identity.

As a painter, Donaldson participated in more than 200 group and solo exhibitions in galleries and museums in Africa, Europe, South America, the Caribbean and the United States. He wrote numerous critical essays and served as dean of the College of Fine Arts at Howard University. Donaldson served as vice president of the Barnes Foundation and on the board of the National Center for Afro-American Artists.

Donaldson passed away on February 29, 2004.

Donaldson was interviewed by The HistoryMakers on April 23, 2001.