Elaine "Jae" Jarrell (born Elaine Annette Johnson in 1937) is an American artist and fashion designer associated with the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s. She is a co-founder of AfriCOBRA, an artist collective organization.
Jarrell was raised in Cleveland, Ohio, in the Glenville neighborhood.[1] From an early age, she became familiar with fabrics and sewing through her grandparents.[1] She was also influenced by her uncle, who owned a haberdashery that sold fabric and sewing supplies. His business played a role in shaping her early interest in both fashion and entrepreneurship.[1]
Alongside the influence of her grandparents and uncle, Jarrell’s mother introduced her to vintage shops and to the value of craftsmanship in clothing.[1] Reflecting on this experience in a conversation with Rose Bouthillier, Jarrell explained:
"And so I always thought of making clothes in order to have something unique, and later I learned to sew very well and made it my business to always make my garments. And I also have a love for vintage, knowing that it has secrets of the past that I can unfold," (p. 64).[2]
In her early years in Chicago, Jarrell worked briefly at Motorola. At the suggestion of a colleague, she began using the professional name “Jae,” derived from her given names.[1] She later opened a store near Hyde Park, which she named “Jae of Hyde Park."[1]
Chicago was also where Jae and Wadsworth contributed to the formation of AfriCOBRA. In an interview, Jarrell noted that the city’s cultural environment influenced the group’s development.[4]
In 1967, Jae married Wadsworth Jarrell. On 7 January 1968, she gave birth to their first child, Wadsworth Jr. After giving birth to their second child, Jennifer, the Jarrells relocated to New York, as Chicago was going through a social and economic downturn.[5]
Following her involvement with AfriCOBRA in Chicago, Jarrell eventually moved to Washington D.C. where she completed her BFA and graduate work at Howard University.[4]
AfriCOBRA
It has been suggested that this section be merged into AfriCOBRA. (Discuss) Proposed since September 2025.
Jeff Donaldson, Wadsworth Jarrell, Jae Jarrell, Barbara Jones-Hogu, and Gerald Williams met in Wadsworth's studio on the South Side of Chicago and formed AFRICOBRA in 1968.[6] Jarrell created much of her art as a member of AfriCOBRA, the African American artist collective that combines the styles of African art with calls for revolution. AfriCOBRA was formed out of the remains of the Coalition of Black Revolutionary Artists (COBRA) and centered around the idea of Black pride and Black empowerment.[4] A manifesto written by a founding member, Jeff Donaldson, declared the principal values and beliefs of the collective. In one section, Donaldson categorized the types of artistic production members of AfriCOBRA would participate in into three groups:
Definition — images that deal with the past.
Identification — images that relate to the present.
Going further in the manifesto, Donaldson gave thorough details about the artistic direction of the collective, providing a list of qualities that he reduced to the six most important ones, which are as follows:
Expressive Awesomeness — the feeling "that one experiences in African art and life in the U.S.A.";
Symmetry and Rhythm — "repetition with change, based on African music and African movement";
Mimesis — "the plus and the minus, the abstract and the concrete";
Organic looking — "We want the work to look like the creator made it through us";
Shine — "We want the things to shine, to have the rich luster of a just-washed 'fro, of spit-shined shoes, of de-ashened elbows and knees and noses";
Color — "color that shines, color that is free of rules and regulations…. Color that is expressively awesome".[7]
The manifesto outlined how AfriCOBRA would operate and influenced the direction of Jae Jarrell’s artistic work within the collective. A goal shared by Jae and other members of the collective was to build a supportive learning community that promoted Black pride. In an interview with the Never the Same Foundation, Jarrell explained:
"We made an effort to raise a consciousness. In our hearts, when we put this all together, we thought it was going to be an explosion of positive imagery, and things that gave kids direction, and knowing some of our leaders now portrayed in a fresh way. I saw a result of our raising the consciousness, particularly about our history."[4]
Although AfriCOBRA was often associated with the Black Panthers and other radical Black groups, Jarrell interpreted the collective as being focused on positivity and the empowerment of African Americans. In the same interview, she explained that she drew on history only to highlight moments of African empowerment, deliberately avoiding references to segregation, both in her own work and within the collective.[4]
Jarrell produced garments for AfriCOBRA with the intent of using clothing as a medium for themes of revolution and identity,[3] thus reflecting the group’s interest in establishing an African American aesthetic connected to Black pride and community. In an interview with the Never the Same Organization in Chicago, she explained that her process involved creating textile designs on leather or suede, which she then modified through tie-dye, screen printing, hand painting, and appliqué.[4] Notable works from this period include the Revolutionary Suit (1968), Ebony Family (1968), and Urban Wall Suit (1969).
The Revolutionary Suit (1968) is a two-piece suit. It features a tweed, collarless jacket and a framed skirt, which match the fashion trends of the time. This ensemble also incorporates a colorful, faux bandolier that stands out against the suit's salt-and-pepper color.[1] This piece inspired ideas about wearing clothing for protest and revolution. Jet magazine criticized mainstream fashion for cultural appropriation in response to the Revolutionary Suit's bandolier design.[1] The magazine accused the fashion world of taking the bandolier, which was meant to be a symbol of the righteous protest against the unfair treatment of African Americans, and attempting to turn it into a trendy accessory.
Following one of the themes of AfriCOBRA, which emphasized the Black Family, Jarrell made her suit called Ebony Family (1968). It is meant to symbolize the power within strong black families. Ebony Family also emphasizes AfriCOBRA's interest in the influence of African art and the use of bright and vivid "Cool-ade"[sic] colors.[1] These "Cool-ade" colors were a play on the bright orange, cherry red, lemon yellow, lime green, and grape purple of the drink Kool-aid. Jarrell accomplishes this by crafting her suit to be like a poster which takes form as a dashiki, a traditional West African men's dress.[1] The suit depicts a colorful, Black family, using the forms reminiscent of the African mask to create their faces.
Jarrell's Urban Wall Suit (1969) is inspired by graffiti and concert posters that filled the streets and African American neighborhoods in Chicago.[1] Jarrell incorporated AfriCOBRA's desire to emphasize images with language by making the suit a symbol of the message boards of the community. All over the suit, there are images of posters that proclaim things like "Vote Democrat" as well as white graffiti messages that say things like "Black Princess" and "Miss Attitude." Furthermore, with Urban Wall Suit, Jarrell reused her fabric to follow one of the tenets of AfriCOBRA, which was to reinvent yourself to create something fresh.[1] She used small pieces and scraps from her store to make the patchwork resemble bricks, adding velvet ribbon as the mortar.[1] These fabric scraps are of all different colors and patterns, including stripes, polka dots, and plaid. She then incorporated the graffiti and poster elements that resembled the message boards.[1]
The AfriCOBRA group identified itself as a 'family'. They came together in a cooperative, merging their unique styles into a collective aesthetic. In doing so, the group was able to represent unity and strength in their art and their movement, while still letting their aspects and styles remain in each of their artworks.[8] Through this unified, 'family' front the AfriCOBRA group was able to reject racialized stereotypes like that of the supposed dysfunctional black family. Their conjoined efforts brought a voice to the community; a voice representing their message and movement through their art.[9] While Jae Jarrell and her husband continually worked with their art family for a movement they wholeheartedly believed in, they eventually stepped away from the coalition. Jarrell has since emphasized the lasting and present influence AfriCOBRA has in her art – they did not leave it fully behind, the direction of their futures just differed.
Though Jarrell is no longer with the AfriCOBRA collective, she still holds all those who were ever a part of the collective as family and says that she is still influenced by them when making art to this day.[4]
In an interview with Rebecca Zorach, Jae Jarrell explains that AfriCOBRA,
"It's like a family, you know, you could never divorce yourself from the family. You can only grow, and you could always understand those who have not moved in the same kind of direction you have, but there's a language you have, and an eye contact and a trust and a respect. It goes a long way."[9]
Later work
In recent years, Jarrell has shifted her focus from design to sculpting and constructing furniture.[4] Some of her recent works, which were displayed in the How to Remain Human exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland, include Maasai Collar Vest (2015), Shields and Candelabra Vest (2015), and Jazz Scramble Jacket (2015). The Maasai Collar Vest (2015) is reminiscent of the ornate garments and jewelry of the Maasai people in Africa.[1] This piece draws on the idea of embracing her African heritage, which is something seen throughout all of her work. Her later work incorporated elements inspired by African art and culture in Shields and Candelabra Vest (2015) by making the piece from cactus plants turned over to make frames for vibrant African shields.[1] For her Jazz Scrabble Jacket (2015), Jarrell combines notions of jazz and blues music with images from the board game Scrabble.[1] Imitating the crossword aspect of Scrabble, Jarrell intersects the names of important musicians to examine the influence of music in building scenes, styles, power, and history for African American communities.[1]
Exhibitions
Jarrell's work has appeared in several major exhibitions, including the Brooklyn Museum of Art's 2014 exhibition Witness: Art and Civil Rights in the Sixties and the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland's 2015 exhibition How to Remain Human.[1] Jarrell's work was also featured in the 2015 exhibit The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music, 1965 to Now at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA). In 2019, her work, which primarily focused on revolution-themed clothing, was also featured along with other artists at The Broad in Los Angeles in a special exhibition called Soul of a Nation.
Her garments belong to private collections and a permanent collection in the Brooklyn Museum of Art.[1]
1 2 Donaldson, Jeff R. "Africobra Manifesto?: 'Ten in Search of a Nation.'" Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art 30, no. 1 (2012): 76-83.
↑ Zorach, Rebecca (September 2011). "'Dig the Diversity in Unity': AfriCOBRA's Black Family". Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry. 28: 102–111. doi:10.1086/662975. ISSN1465-4253. S2CID193124099.
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