One of the country's most respected African American artists, Cortor spent years studying diasporan peoples in the American South and the Caribbean, and, over the years, amalgamated various aspects of women of the African Diaspora into his prototypical black female. Eldzier Cortor was one of the first black male artists to explore the beauty and intensity of black womanhood. Sensuous and melancholy women of color inhabit Cortor's intimate spaces. Seated in a stylized interior, the elongated, gracefully introspective woman of Jewel/Theme IV represents Cortor's idealized black female.  A. L. C.