Indian House

Frank Jones, Indian House, ca. 1968-1969, colored pencil on paper mounted on paperboard, 22 ⁵⁄₈ x 22 ⁵⁄₈ in. (57.5 x 57.5 cm.), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr., and museum purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson, 1986.65.175

Artwork Details

Title: Indian House
Artist: Frank Jones
Date: ca. 1968-1969
Location: Not on view
Dimensions: 22 ⁵⁄₈ x 22 ⁵⁄₈ in. (57.5 x 57.5 cm.)
Credit Line: Gift of Herbert Waide Hemphill, Jr., and museum purchase made possible by Ralph Cross Johnson
Mediums: pencil
Mediums Description: colored pencil on paper mounted on paperboard
Classifications: Drawing
Subjects: Architecture — domestic — house
Fantasy — animal
Object Number: 1986.65.175
Linked Open Data: https://edan.si.edu/saam/id/object/1986.65.175

Artwork Description

Frank Jones said he started seeing “haints” (haunts or ghosts) and devils when he was a boy of about nine, and he drew his first interpretations of them around that time. The drawings that he became known for were made later, between 1961 and 1964, during the last of three prison sentences that collectively comprised more than a third of his life. Drawn in colors that Jones called those of “smoke and fire,” devils gamble, drink, or appear in the form of a woman, depicting the evils that could drag a man down. His frequent use of clocks references an early prison job as a courthouse clock winder as well as the metaphor of “doing time.”