Amy Jones

Amy Jones (1899–1992) was an American artist and muralist in the early 20th century. She was one of the founding members of the Saranac Lake Art League. Though most known for her watercolors, like Sandy Acre which is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Jones also did illustration work for magazines and books. She won national competitions to complete post office murals for the post offices in Winsted, Connecticut; Painted Post, New York, and Scotia, New York. Several major U.S. corporations hold over twenty of her works. Early life Amy A. White was born April 4, 1899 in Buffalo, New York. Her mother, Carrie or Clara White was born in Canada and her father, Squire White was a New York native. White's father had died by 1910 and she and her mother were living in Brooklyn. White attended Erasmus Hall High School, graduating in 1918. She won a scholarship to attend the Pratt Institute and study art. After two years at Pratt, White continued her training at the Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo. In 1920, she married David Blair Jones and continued her studies in Woodstock with Cecil Chichester; with Henry Hensche in Provincetown, Massachusetts; Wayman Adams at Elizabethtown, New York; and Anthony di Bona at Saranac Lake. In 1930, Jones was awarded a fellowship from the Buffalo Society of Arts and she and David moved to Saranac Lake, where David was a tubercular patient in a nursing cottage. The following year, the couple had a daughter, Lucy. Jones opened a studio on the grounds of the Trudeau Institute. Career Jones began submitting sketches for art competitions as part of the New Deal's Treasury Relief Art Project during the Great Depression. In 1937, she submitted a triptych, St. Regis Reservation, for one of the Treasury Department's completions and on the basis of the entry was awarded the contract for the post office of Winsted, Connecticut. The painting is now part of the collection at the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake, New York. It pictures daily life and work on the St. Regis Mohawk Reservation, including logging, basket weaving, and health care. The Winsted post office mural was Jones's first commission. Her 1938 painting, Lincoln's Arbiter Settles the Winsted Post Office Controversy depicted a historical conflict in Winsted over where the post office for the town was to be located.