Jae Jarrell was born in Cleveland, OH. She studied at Bowling Green State University, and Art and Fashion Design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. For the 1963-64 Collection.  Ebony Fashion Fair commissioned a formal gown by Jae. In Spring of 1964, Jae opened a boutique, Jae of Hyde Park, featuring seasonal lines of one-of-a-kind tailored wear. In 1967, Wadsworth Jarrell and Jae married. They set up a mass production workshop in WJ Studios to develop mail-order inventory while also teaching adult sewing classes. Jae became a founding member of AFRICOBRA, sculpting and painting classic revolutionary garbs, and above all, partnered to build a loving Jarrell family, the most powerful ammunition of all.

For better than 50 years, Jae has shared her vision for leadership, resolution, positivity, and worldwide uplift with Classic Black adornment. In 2020, as a founding member of AFRICOBRA, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago awarded Jae with an Honorary Doctorate. Jae’s work has been shown nationally and internationally including, the Tate Modern Museum, UK; Brooklyn Museum, NY; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Crystal Bridges Museum, AK; the Broad Museum, Los Angeles; de Young Museum, San Francisco; Smart Museum of Art, Chicago; Museum of Fine Art, Houston; Toronto Museum of Art, Canada; Miami Museum, FL; and AFRICOBRA: Nation Time, Venice Biennale, Italy. Her works are in many private and museum collections including the Brooklyn Museum, Smart Museum of Art, and the Rennie Collection, Vancouver, Canada.

Works