This collection showcases the rich legacies of HBCUs through artistic expression. Featured works include paintings, sculptures, murals, mixed media, prints, drawings, and fine art photography.
This piece features a set of three etching plates and samples. Together, these three plates form the design for Long’s 1990 print Pre Rome. This piece was created during Long’s Prix de Rome fellowship. Long rose to prominence as an “outsider artist” without formal training, later becoming one of the co-founders of Project Row Houses.
This is a zinc etching plate for one layer of Long’s Post Rome, a man’s face with vertical bars and diagonal rays around it. In the full print, the center of the design is a large, oval-shaped eye. This is a frequently used motif in Long’s artwork, across many different mediums. The vertical and diagonal rays and bars draw attention towards the eye, which features a man’s face where the pupil would be. Long’s print was created during his 1990 Prix de Rome fellowship.
This is a copper etching plate for Long’s piece Roma, which was created during his 1990-91 Prix de Rome fellowship. Featuring one layer of the print, a background resembling poured paint, the full composition is somewhat reminiscent of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. Long rose to prominence as an “outsider artist” without formal training, later becoming one of the co-founders of Project Row Houses.
Born in Chicago, Charles White was a painter, printmaker, muralist, and educator known for his stylistic approach to Black subjects. Youth is a lithograph portrait of a young man looking into a far-off distance. Cross-hatching contrasts shadow and light across the young man’s face.
David Driskell was a Black artist, scholar, and curator known for his culmination of African abstract forms and modern aesthetics from Eatonton, GA. Young Pines Growing is an abstraction of a pine tree against a light blue background. The dispersed tree displays a texture similar to stained-glass using dimensional greens.
William Artis was a sculptor from Washington, NC. Young Mother is a ceramic sculpture of a hooded woman looking off into the distance away from the viewer.
John T. Biggers was an educator, painter, and muralist from Gastonia, NC. Young Mother depicts a woman breastfeeding her baby. The seated woman is wearing a nightgown and kerchief while caring for the baby. The baby wears a onesie as he feeds from his mother. Various people are outside the windows of the wooden homes.
Elizabeth Catlett was an artist and educator from Washington, D.C., who repatriated to Mexico. Young Girl is a Terra-Cotta bust of a Black female. It shows Catlett's sculptural skill with sharp details from the subject's hair texture to her expression.
Oliver’s etching shows an idyllic scene, with a young boy surrounded by Texan flora and fauna. These include a muscovy duck, a goat, a turtle, a pumpkin, and more plants. Oliver grew up in Refugio in southeastern Texas, attended TSU, and moved to Waco after his graduation. Texas wildlife is a frequent subject of Oliver’s work, including his Hermes scarves.
Shelia Pree Bright is a cultural anthropologist and photographer from Waycross, GA. Young Americans Series: Tarrynn Deavens, age 18, African American depicts a young Black woman posing with the American flag binding her arms and mouth. This series is an examination of Generation Y's response to America.
This kneeling, beaded woman is a product of the Yoruba people in West Africa. The woman has scars on her face, braids, and is covering her breasts. The woman's colorful beaded jewelry suggests she has a certain status in society, yet her posture shows humility and servitude.
Benjamin Britt was a figurative, surrealist, abstract painter and art teacher from Winfall, NC. Yield Not depicts the debilitating nature of mental health issues and their impact on human perception and potential. The subject is cowering with his head in his lap as he reaches toward a small pink ball that he perceives as out of his reach.
Criner's print uses forced perspective to depict a field of oversized yams and a mother picking from the land, with her children alongside. The son and daughter each hold baskets, presumably full of freshly harvested yams. Yams are a staple crop in West African culture and cuisine. In the African diaspora, sweet potatoes sometimes take yams’ place.
William Artis was a sculptor from Washington, NC. Woman with Kerchief is a terracotta sculpture of a Black woman with her head covered by a tied kerchief.
Askia’s drawing depicts a weary woman at work, stooped over a woven basket. As a student, Askia made a series of drawings that highlight Black women and the different types of labor they perform. Feminist thinkers have long argued that unpaid, domestic labor performed by women is often rendered invisible in discussions of their contributions.
Frank Neal was a painter who studied in Mexico and at The Art Institute of Chicago. Woman in White is a portrait painting of a Black woman in all-white attire holding an umbrella with a white and gold handle. She is depicted as high-class in a bright yellow room with two chairs, a white picture frame, and a marble table in the background.
This print by Trudell Mimms shows a woman gazing to her right, with unidentifiable figures in the background. In Black Art in Houston: The Texas Southern University Experience, Dr. John T. Biggers referred to Mimms as "one of our finest painters."
Williams' drawing depicts a woman dressed in a large, flowing garment with her hair covered, pouring water into a bin. Behind her, a checkerboard quilt hangs over a clothesline to dry. This piece highlights some of the unseen and unappreciated domestic labor performed by Black women. The checkerboard motif was frequently used by Dr. John Biggers and often appears in the artwork of his students.
Henry Wilmer Bannarn was an educator, sculptor, painter, and sketch artist best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance. Winter Sports is an oil painting of seven figures in a frozen pond below a town on a hill. Four figures are skating, two are sitting near the lake, and one is watching from a short distance.
Julia Ann Fields was an artist from Lawrence, KS. Winter Feeling illustrates a residential area after a snowfall. The painting depicts a green-roofed house with a shed and wheelbarrow. In the background are three other homes in various colors and barren trees.
June Hector was an artist from Atlanta, GA. Wild Flowers displays a landscape of flowers in multiple colors and plant organisms all surrounding a small body of water. The colors blue, red, yellow, and purple are layered throughout the painting.
James Watkins was an artist from Akron, OH. Widow Woman is a portrait of an elderly Black woman wearing a long white dress, a light blue shawl, a pink headwrap, and small golden earrings. She looks straight ahead in solitude, her hands folded over one another.
Boyd's painting is inspired by philosopher Charles W. Mills's book, "Blackness Visible." Boyd's painting responds to the question of "what makes Blackness visible?" with, in her words, "three possible answers to this: our culture, our revolutions, and/or our d/Death. Is it our culture? Our revolution? Our d/Death? Or is it an amalgamation of all three?" The artist is a graduate of Texas Southern University and cites her parents, who always encouraged her to write and draw, as creative inspirations.
Lloyd’s painting depicts the facade of the historic Wesley Chapel AME Church, founded in Houston’s Third Ward in the 1870s. The landscape and sky are painted in geometric form, commonly found in 1970s TSU student artwork. The church is set to be renovated and turned into a multi-purpose complex with a gospel music museum, recording studio, and affordable housing units.
Biggers completed work on this mural in 1959 after returning from his UNESCO fellowship in West Africa. Originally installed in the Samuel M. Nabrit Science Building on Texas Southern’s campus, it is now located in the University Museum. Mother Nature is at the center of this work, surrounded by embryos and skeletons, animals and fish, and men and women. It speaks to the interconnectedness of life.
William Artis was a sculptor from Washington, NC. We Have Seen His Face is a ceramic bust of a hooded woman with her head raised. The subject holds a reverent expression as she looks toward God.
This is a watercolor sketch for Long’s piece Roma, which was created during his 1990-91 Prix de Rome fellowship. Featuring a blobby figure and colorful swirls, the composition is somewhat reminiscent of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. Long also included a sketch of the frame he intended to create for the piece. Long rose to prominence as an “outsider artist” without formal training, later becoming one of the co-founders of Project Row Houses.
This is a watercolor sketch of Long’s Post Rome. In the full print, the center of the design is a large, oval-shaped eye. This is a frequently used motif in Long’s artwork, across many different mediums. Vertical and diagonal rays and bars draw attention towards the eye, which features a man’s face where the pupil would be. The final piece is placed in a cast bronze frame embedded with coins, like this sketch shows. Long’s print was created during his 1990 Prix de Rome fellowship.
Frederick D. Jones, Jr., was a mid-twentieth-century artist from South Carolina. Wash Day is an impressionistic painting depicting a Black woman doing laundry. In the piece, a robed woman with a laundry bag on her head is washing linens outside in a neighborhood. In the background, a house and two trees are visible.
Evans’ mural features a self-portrait of the artist below the muscular arms of two angels. Above, an open book radiates light onto the setting. Evans is a founding member of Otabenga Jones & Associates, an artists’ collective founded by four former TSU students.
