Foster’s painting is inspired by Charles White’s Sound of Silence. Third Ward is the historically Black neighborhood of Houston that Texas Southern calls home. Where White’s original features a seashell, Foster substitutes a rowhouse, the style of homes that are the heart of Third Ward. John Biggers studied under White at Hampton University.
This radiant work by Oliver Parson engulfs the viewer in the spiraling flow of a smiling woman's silky headwrap. The headwrap is a fashionable method of hair protection and expression of identity that is shared among women across the African diaspora.
This painting, created by an unknown TSU art student, depicts the base of a tree or wooden telephone pole, with various smaller plants and vines creeping up its structure. Dr. John T. Biggers encouraged students to study the natural world and seek inspiration from it. He instructed students to sit outside for an extended period of time and observe.
Cornett's work shows Stokely Carmichael with angelic features amidst raised hands. He was a key civil rights activist, a leader of the SNCC, and popularized the term "Black Power." He spoke at Texas Southern one month prior to the so-called “TSU Riots,” when police invaded the campus, fired 5,000 rounds into dormitories, and arrested 497 students.
This work by Earl Jones is an abstract, desert landscape of barren trees emerging from red and orange rings in the ground. Jones was a student at Texas Southern in the mid-1970s and was taught by artists and instructors like Dr. John T. Biggers and Professor Carroll Harris Simms.
Onyeiwu's painting depicts a smiling woman wearing a green dress with geometric designs, against a blue background. The artist is a Texas Southern alumnus and current art professor, teaching painting, drawing, and murals courses. Much of his work highlights the beauty of Black women.
The piece by Bennie Settles shows a man wearing a cowboy hat, looking out onto a mostly empty field with two horses grazing. Settles was a student at Texas Southern and has many works in the collection showing his style of using rounded shapes and gradients to create muscle on his subjects.
Mills' work is a compelling narrative, showing a white woman firing a cannon aimed at a damaged canoe as a lifeless indigenous person is floating near the wreck. Another woman, a child, a baby, and another indigenous person watch helplessly in the background. This work seems to be a commentary of the violence against Indigenous people in America.
This abstract work features three distorted cows’ faces that seem to be staring upwards and at the viewer, against a colorful triangular background. Vital was an art student at Texas Southern and later went on to become a faculty member in the art department. Many works in the school’s collection, particularly from the 1970s, use cubist styles.
Leonard Henderson's cool-colored composition depicts a calm landscape of farmers working a field next to train tracks. The tracks running next to the field may hint at the contrast between urban and rural life and show the development of rural areas during the turn of the 20th century.
This painting by Roy Vinson Thomas is a landscape piece depicting a tree stump and mushrooms in cubist style. Cubism depicts forms using multiple geometric shapes to create depth. Many works in Texas Southern's permanent collection, particularly from the late 1970s, use this art style.
Settles' painting tackles the ongoing issue of police brutality against and harassment of Black Americans. The fluid swirls on the men's clothing, the anxious onlookers, and the white officer's drawn baton illustrate the high intensity and precarious emotion of the piece.
The work by Oliver Parson is a calm and dreamlike scene of a child sitting in a prairie as an angel and a person race towards him. Both figures represent salvation, one rescuing him from death and the other saving him from Earth.
Mendoza's painting depicts an expecting mother gazing into the distance and wearing a traditional Mexican rebozo. Mother and child is a prevalent theme in art by Texas Southern Art Department students, and the theme is found in drawings, sculptures, murals, and paintings.
Parson’s painting shows a young girl shielding her face. To the left, a crow holds a coin, to the right Jesus is crucified, below a perched crow. The crows may allude to Jim Crow, which made racism law from after the Civil War until the 1960s; crows are also a symbol of death.
Oliver's painting depicts an accord between settlers and a group of indigenous Americans. Colonizers consistently broke their agreements with tribes, and took more and more land from them. Indigenous peoples of the American Southwest are frequent subjects of Oliver's work.
Oliver's painting depicts vanguard Black politicians from the Reconstruction period following emancipation. Radical Reconstruction saw the election of dozens of Black lawmakers in former slave states like Texas. After 1897, Texas didn't elect another Black legislator until 1966.
Ellison's painting is a nature scene featuring a bisected tree stump, with untamed growth all around it. At the bottom of the painting, there are several seashells, which the artist enhanced with raised, textural elements. Ellison was a TSU student during the Civil Rights era.
Vital's painting depicts a bird feeding a worm to its three offspring, reflecting the theme of mother & child that often appears in TSU student work. The artist often featured animals and nature in his work. After his graduation, Vital taught art for many years at Texas Southern.
Oliver's painting depicts a group of men marching and playing drums and flutes, seemingly as part of a military expedition. The red sky in the background seems to forebode violence and bloodshed. Oliver's works often reference Biblical and ancient mythological stories and themes.
This painting by Edward Mills depicts an older Black man sitting and reading a newspaper. The dimly lit scene is minimal and the man, his chair, and the paper are the only objects in the painting, highlighting the focus of the painting. The artist cleverly uses real newspapers.
This watercolor painting by Frank Perkins features a scene at a baseball stadium. This work may be an homage to the Negro Leagues, which offered Black baseball players the chance to play professionally prior to Jackie Robinson's integration of Major League Baseball.
This painting by Charlene Claye shows a group of three people, including at least two women, fishing by a pond. This painting highlights one of the many types of labor Black women perform to support their families and communities.
This watercolor painting by Joseph A. Moran features a grazing cow in the foreground and an outhouse and farmhouse in the background. Dr. Biggers encouraged students to create based on what they saw, which may have been this rural scene for this artist.
This detailed painting by Barry Morris includes a pair of hands rising up and clasping a bird. There are also bundles of wheat and a set of vessels. Pairs of detached hands are a repeated motif in the artist's work, including in his mural in Hannah Hall.
