M.C. 5¢ Jones
(ca.1918 - 2003)
Born in Eagle Shute, Louisiana, Self-taught Outsider Artist M.C. Jones spent most of his life as a laborer picking cotton and doing yard work on the Lynn Plantation, just east of the Texas border. He acquired the nickname "5¢" because he was only about five feet tall.
His paintings are of rural farm life in scenes depicting small town fiestas and honky-tonk bands, church weddings and baptisms, wagons loaded with watermelons and wash day. His portraits of family members are especially wonderful. His work also includes religious themes in paintings of Noah's Ark, the Crucifixion, and the Garden of Eden.
M.C. Jones is included in the collections of the National Museum of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution and the Louisiana State Museum.