01/12/2026
Threewalls community member Napoleon Jones-Henderson (1943-2025) is now an Ancestor, after transitioning last month. Born in Chicago, Napoleon was a friend, mentor, and collaborator at Threewalls. As a founding member of AfriCOBRA, the artist collective founded in Chicago in 1968, Napoleon helped to shape the collective’s ethos, impact and legacy in art history, contemporary art, and Black life and culture. Napoleon continued to steward the collective until his transition.
Napoleon’s relationship with Threewalls began in 2018 when our Executive Director Dr. Jeffreen Ash curated two AfriCOBRA exhibitions on the occasion of the collective’s 50th anniversary: “AfriCOBRA: Messages to the People” at MOCA North Miami and “AfriCOBRA: Nation Time” for the 2019 Venice Biennale, an official collateral event. Napoleon’s support and engagement with Threewalls has left a lasting impact, with the most recent being his contribution to our 20th anniversary publication “Dreaming of a Future.” Napoleon’s essay “Dreaming of a Future” is a poetic grounding of the past and the present with a nod to the future.
We send our deepest condolences to his family, friends and community as they grieve and celebrate his life and legacy. Ashe.
