Following the money led South Carolina artist John W. Jones, a descendant of slaves, to see art where he least expected it — the currency of the Old South. He has spent the past decade dramatizing a long-forgotten fact: Slaves picking, baling and transporting cotton were depicted routinely on Confederate bills.

Artist John W. Jones doesn't see himself as a teacher. Yet through his thought-provoking paintings of Confederate money, he teaches an important lesson in history. His exhibit, Confederate Currency: The Color of Money, Depictions of Slavery in Confederate and Southern States Currency, will…

In the 138 years since the Civil War ended, a question has lingered over the South as hauntingly as the memories of the soldiers who gave their lives on the battlefield: How important was slavery to the Confederacy? Historians have debated the question, yet the answer remains elusive. And in a place where…

The Old South was never his favorite topic. As a commercial artist descended from slaves, John W. Jones was more interested in depicting the black history that began with Emancipation. Then he saw a tiny image that opened his eyes. A customer at the blueprint shop where Jones was working wanted…

Art based on Confederate money torpedoes myths that all was well. The phrase "it's right on the money" tells the whole story. S.C. artist John Jones has brought scenes of Southern slavery to the American public through an unusual stimulus: 150-year-old Confederate bills. Through a vibrant palette of acrylics…

John W. Jones believes his great-great grandmother would be pleased with his art. Carrie Viola Jones was born a slave. Sometime before the age of 12, she received from her master or overseer a whipping so brutal that the scars on her back lasted all the rest of her 109 years. She died in 1963, when Jones was 13.

Slavery was so interwoven with America's social and economic system that sudden abolition would shatter the union. So argued a desperate South in the decades before the Civil War. Never mind the slave owners, the argument ran -- abolition was bad for slaves and for the country. If slavery were at the…

Without a magnifying glass, it is difficult to see the faces on the slaves as they harvest cotton and hoist overflowing baskets to their shoulders. Minutely engraved on the tattered currency of the old South, the images are faded and smudged, and their message has languished in the vaults of collectors.