Tom Jones II

5 Plain Questions

Tom Jones is an artist, curator, writer, and educator, where he is the professor of photography at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Painting from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Master of Fine Arts in Photography and a Master of Arts in Museum Studies from Columbia College in Chicago, Illinois. Jones’ artwork is a commentary on identity, experience and perception of American Indian communities. For the past 25 years he has worked an ongoing photographic essay on his tribe, the Ho-Chunk Nation of Wisconsin. His current work Strong Unrelenting Spirits are portraits of tribal members, which incorporates beadwork directly onto the photographs. Jones co-authored the book “People of the Big Voice, Photographs of Ho-Chunk Families by Charles Van Schaick, 1879-1943.” He is the co-curator for the exhibition and contributing author to the book, “For a Love of His People: The Photography of Horace Poolaw” for the National Museum of the American Indian. His current book project is dedicated to Ho-Chunk baskets and their makers. His artwork is in forty public collections, most notably: The National Museum of the American Indian, Polaroid Corporation, Sprint Corporation, The Nerman Museum, The Minneapolis Institute of Art, The Museum of Contemporary of Native Arts, The Museum of Contemporary Photography, and Microsoft.