This book is a life history of the African American art collector Paul R. Jones. Living Art presents the life of a man who grew up during the height of Jim Crow segregation in Alabama, the son of parents who embraced the dual ideals of racial pride and racial integration, and who has become one of the nation’s leading collectors of African American art. Influenced by his father to mediate conflict and navigate the color line and inspired by his mother’s prize-winning gardening skills to love beauty, Paul R. Jones envisions making African American art an integral part of American art. This book chronicles his life and his gift of a substantial part of the Paul R. Jones Collection of African American art to the University of Delaware.