Aaron Douglas was an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance, a critical period in the cultural history of the United States. Although best known for work produced in his innovative style that synthesized elements of Cubism, Art Deco, and African art, Douglas was also a skilled portrait painter. His talent for capturing the distinctive personality and physical presence of a sitter is evident in this elegant portrait of Julia Washington Bond, a former research librarian at the Woodruff Library of Atlanta University, wife of the educator and writer Horace Mann Bond, and mother of three children, including the civil rights leader Julian Bond.