Maritime Serenity: Ocean Harbor Scene

John W. Jones (born c. 1950) is an American artist who first gained acclaim for his series “Confederate Currency: The Color of Money.” Self-taught and drafted into the U.S. Army in 1970, he served in Vietnam, eventually becoming an Army illustrator. Examining Confederate banknotes, he became interested in the depiction of the slave economy in the American South before and during the American Civil War. Banknotes of the era often depicted slaves as happy workers on the cotton plantations. Jones has said his intent is to demonstrate that banknotes served a propaganda purpose in depicting slavery as a natural state of affairs and one on which the Southern states’ economies rested.