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.
John Woodrow Wilson was a famous painter known for his creative portraits and stylistic approach to social justice. Father and Child is a black-and-white print of a seemingly nude father holding his equally nude son. The piece embodies the intimacy between parent and child.
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.
Charles Henry Alston was a Harlem Renaissance painter, sculptor, illustrator, muralist, and teacher. Farm Boy is a portrait of a young Black boy holding a hat and tool on a farm. Alston photographed Black Southern life in North Carolina when he visited rural and farm sites with a Farm Security Administration inspector.
Texas Southern University students commissioned Biggers to paint this mural in the cafeteria of the student center. Composed of several distinct but interrelated images, Family Unity features several Afrocentric motifs that Biggers developed, including sacred geometry (checkerboards and spirals), shotgun houses, and husband-and-wife pairs. At the center is what Biggers called the “morning star,” which shows a couple embracing with their form suggesting a womb.
Sifuentes shows multiple generations of a family, painted in a geometric style. Sifuentes borrows visual symbols from his teacher, Dr. Biggers, including the tortoise (longevity) and the serpent (danger and rebirth). Guardian ancestors are represented by figures with angel wings.
The graphic strength of Oliver's portraits is clearly evident in these two panels. By limiting his palette to black and white, the artist underscores the powerful gazes of the figures. Because of his enthusiasm and talent, Oliver was allowed to create additional murals when empty spaces were available.
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. Dr. John T. Biggers, founder of Texas Southern's art department, studied under White at Hampton University.
Romeyn van Vleck Lippman was a 19th-century painter and educator. Eternal depicts a family portrait of three generations. Lippman illustrates the immortality of humanity through familial legacies.
Erma Gordon's self-portrait shows the artist from three different angles. The three profiles are tied together by a light, almost translucent fabric that is worn by the frontmost figure and held by the others. This motif is used repeatedly by the artist, including in her mural. Two boys move fluidly and playfully through the background.
Hayward Oubre was a multimedia artist and educator from New Orleans, LA. Equivocal Fox is an abstract depiction of a fox using polygonal shapes. The red and blue forms overlap throughout the painting. The entire artwork is painted with a bumpy texture, which creates a slight relief sculpture effect.
Jewell Woodard Simon was an internationally acclaimed artist, teacher, and poet from Houston, TX. Ensenada Passage illustrates a mountainous path to Ensenada, Mexico. A bridge leading to the city is in the foreground, roads lay in the middle ground, and the mountains build up towards the sky, creating an atmospheric perspective.
Cleinmann’s mural displays multiple generations of Black women, a manifestation of Biggers’ teachings about their importance. The mural is one of the few unfinished murals in Hannah Hall. Typically, unfinished murals were painted over. The mural was recently restored by conservators.
This painting 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 aspects visible, highlighting the focus of the painting. The artist cleverly incorporates real newspapers into the piece's media.
Lois Mailou Jones was an artist and art educator known for her costumes, textile designs, watercolors, paintings, and collages from Washington, D.C. Egyptian Heritage presents a genealogical and cultural heritage between contemporary Blacks and Ancient Egypt. Jones uses Ancient Egyptian scenes and hieroglyphics in the background.
Henri Linton was an artist and art professor from Tuscaloosa, AL. Easy for One, Hard for Two is a polyptych depicting the domestic labor expected of wives. The husband sits at the table while the wife's feet and calves are visible as she prepares food for the family in the well-kept house she cares for.
Leroy C. Weaver was an artist and art educator from Prarie View, TX. East Texas Oil Field is a print depicting an oil field in East Texas. The print features several oil rigs and workers' living quarters. In the background, a landscape of forest and trees is visible. The drawing shows the oil field from a pilot's perspective.
Warren L. Harris was a draftsman from Brooklyn, NY. East River is a watercolor painting of its namesake in New York City. Harris captures a scene of multi-floor buildings, a water tower, phone lines, and a factory along the bank of the river. There are several boats in the water.
Joseph Delaney, younger brother of Beauford Delaney, was a Harlem Renaissance artist from Knoxville, TN. East River depicts the waterway that separates Queens from Manhattan. The impasto piece shows Queens and two boats by the Queensboro bridge with Manhattan in the distance.
This painting is an Afrocentric self-portrait of Earl Jones, who attended Texas Southern University in the mid-1970s. Jones painted himself wearing a detailed shirt with various patterns reminiscent of African textiles. The background includes round homes with conical roofs. The buttons of Jones' shirt are in the form of humans and the shirt bears the design of a plowed field.
Houston Chandler was a sculptor, printmaker, painter, and teacher from Saint Louis, MO. Duel in the Sun is a print artwork of an avian match on an abstracted landscape. One colorful rooster looks down upon the other it just defeated. The roosters are set on a green field against a blue sky with a swirling yellow sun.
Mendoza’s drawing shows two doves and a serpent protecting an abstract, embryo-like figure. A geometric aura emanates from the bundle of creatures, perhaps alluding to the way parents protect their children. The drawing is created using crosshatching and heavy use of geometric shapes; both of these techniques are characteristic of the work of Dr. John T. Biggers and his students.
Biggers’ drawing shows a woman and her reflection. The woman, positioned on the left side of the composition, looks slightly back over her left shoulder, while the sun creeps out from around her midsection. The woman is cradling a baby in her arms. Her reflection is drawn loosely with minimal details, and the two are separated by a line of plant and fish shapes.
Woodruff’s portrait depicts Martin Luther King Jr., the iconic civil rights leader who was assassinated in 1968. Woodruff taught art at Atlanta University for 15 years and perhaps came into contact with MLK during this time. Two of these three side profiles appear to show King smiling, while in the third he is looking away with a serious expression. Woodruff's Art of the Negro murals at Clark Atlanta University are one of his crowning achievements.
This etching by American artist Leonard Baskin shows a dog dozing in a meadow. A crow rests on a plant above the dog. Unlike most works held by the University Museum, the artist is not an alumnus of Texas Southern, nor tied to the university in any way. Instead, this piece was donated to the museum by a benefactor.
Harper T. Phillips was an artist from Courtland, AL. Discernment is a vivid landscape of surrealism (or a surrealist landscape). The right side has a white background displaying relationships between religion and science. The left black side shows connections between morality and mortality.
Vivian M. Williams was an artist and art teacher from Coshocton, OH. Discards show wooden furniture and a wooden rocking chair facing a white-brown brick wall. All the wooden material sits on a bed of bright yellow hat with strands of golden brown.
This is a universal scene of the despair and struggle facing a group determined to survive. The lone tree in the moonlight starkly symbolizes the darkness surrounding the scene (center left panel), while the tree rising from a swamp (leftmost panel) suggests hope with the bird, butterfly, and waterlily indicating transformative beauty.
James Newton was a painter, printmaker, scholar, and professor from Delaware. Desperate Faith is a print depicting a mystical figure riding a unicycle as another figure watches. The dark, eery background contributes to the surrealism of the piece.
Irabell Cotton was a multidisciplinary artist from Harris, Oklahoma. Despair is a marble sculpture depicting a person in an anguished pose. The figure is balled into itself, with its head in one hand and the other arm wrapped around its shoulder.
James Reuben Reed was a painter born in Kansas City, MO. Depressed is an oil painting of a seated man wearing a tattered gray suit, a hat, and black shoes. He is leaning forward, whiting a piece of wood and looking toward the viewer.
