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 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.
Elizabeth Montgomery Shelton’s terracotta is made up of a variety of colored clays with embellishments that have been painted using black and tan slips. The top half includes layers of plates extending out from the surface, while the bottom half is evenly decorated with pressed circular clay. The structure perhaps mimics an instrument or a bird feeder.
Remble's drawing portrays renowned Mardi Gras Indian chief David Montana. Mardi Gras Indians refers to Black New Orleanians who draw from Creole, Indigenous, African, and Afro-Caribbean tradition to develop a unique form of visual culture and resistance. Remble, a Texas Southern graduate, was born in New Orleans and later moved to Houston. In his own words, he aims to "explore and preserve the diverse subcultures of the American South" through his art.
Samples’ painting is a self-portrait. During the elementary painting course, Texas Southern art majors are required to paint self-portraits. Samples’ classmates recall being intimidated and inspired by his talent and work pace when they sat next to him in the studio. Samples was one of the founders of Houston’s Project Row Houses and now works as an art conservator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
This Biggers print shows a figure playing a balafon, with a sankofa bird overhead. The balafon is a West African percussion and the sankofa bird signifies the importance of the past in improving the future. Taken together, they show the importance of music in preserving culture.
Michaux’s painting shows a nude woman draped with jewelry from her ears, neck, and arms. In her right hand, she holds a branch with leaves; a small flame extends from her left hand, above her head. After graduating from Texas Southern, Michaux went on to teach art at several universities, including HBCUs Southern University, North Carolina Central University, and South Carolina State University.
Hicks’ shimmering painting shows a young girl, clad in purple cloth, wearing emerald jewelry against a purple geometric background. Purple is often associated with royalty and the glittering elements add to the piece’s sense of luxury and decadence. Hicks graduated from Texas Southern University in 2018.
Leonard Cooper was a painter, musician, and piano teacher from Salinas, CA. Before the Rains Came illustrates a rural landscape prior to a rainstorm. It depicts two barns, a thicket of trees, a fenced area, and rolling hills under a dark cloudy sky.
The right section reflects the tenet of “policing the police.” The officers’ stance is eerily similar to Derek Chauvin’s murder of George Floyd and the fire extinguisher underscores the scene’s violence. The left speaks to racialized beauty standards and “Black is Beautiful” messaging of the 1960s and 70s.
Elizabeth Catlett was an artist and educator from Washington, D.C., who repatriated to Mexico. Bather is a bronze sculpture of a woman preparing to bathe. The subject is nude, standing with their head held high with a towel hanging from their arm.
This work by Allen shows two basketball players reaching up for a jump ball amidst a run-down, graffiti-covered warehouse. The scene has minimal color, save for the graffiti, which enhances the abandoned atmosphere. Allen is an alumnus of Texas Southern and focuses on highlighting the Black experience in his work, often creating collages that include sports imagery.
Samella Sanders Lewis was a printmaker, painter, sculptor, and art historian from New Orleans, LA. Barrier is a drawing that depicts the physical and social barriers between groups of people. In the foreground, three women and a boy suspiciously look at a group of townspeople who return their stare from the other side of a barbed wire fence.
Romeyn van Vleck Lippman was a 19th-century painter and educator. Baptismal (I Give This Child to Baptism) depicts a religious scene of a woman preparing to baptize a girl. Both female subjects are dark-skinned and standing in water, dressed in white, under a dark sky. The woman is wearing a red kerchief, and the girl's is white.
Franklin Shands was a painter from Cincinnati, Ohio. Back Way shows the back perspective of conjoined brick buildings with chimneys, a staircase and a balcony. A door sits at the center of the painting, with four stacked barrels on the right.
Gordon’s mural examines her own life and personal development. A wispy fabric running through the mural serves as a metaphor for her emerging self-awareness; this motif is found in some of her other works. Gordon’s mural showcases herself working on several art projects from her undergraduate period.
John Payne was an artist from New Orleans, LA. Awaiting the Welfare Agents is a mixed-media depiction of a traditional family with pensive expressions. They are sitting together preparing for a visit from a representative of the Department of Human Services.
Romare Bearden was an artist, author, and songwriter from Charlotte, NC. Atlanta Mural is a maquette of a mural created for City Scenes '76-'77, the National Paint and Coatings Association bicentennial. Bearden includes the Kente symbol, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's head, the silhouette of a Black family, a church, and a plot of land to represent the African American influence in the city.
This Biggers print shows a person's head surrounded by animals and a checkerboard. Checkerboards and swirls are common motifs in Biggers' work, which he referred to as sacred geometry. The pictured animals are symbolic; for instance, tortoises represent longevity and rabbits represent bad omens.
Gregory L. Ridley, Jr., was an artist from Smyrna, TN. Asleep in Stone is a marble sculpture of a person asleep. The subject's face is subtly carved into the marble, giving the impression that the subject is not separate from the stone.
Alvin Smith was an artist from Brooklyn, NY. As in an Arctic Sunrise is an abstract depiction of the sunrise in a frozen landscape. Muted yellows shine through an array of black, white, and muted blues.
Hale Aspacio Woodruff was an artist and art educator known for his murals, paintings, and prints from Cairo, IL. Parallels, the fourth panel in the Art of the Negro mural series, shows the innate connection between non-European indigenous cultures despite geographic divisions.
Hale Aspacio Woodruff was an artist and art educator known for his murals, paintings, and prints from Cairo, IL. Native Forms, the first panel in the Art of the Negro mural series, illustrates the range, diversity, and function of art in traditional African societies.
Hale Aspacio Woodruff was an artist and art educator known for his murals, paintings, and prints from Cairo, IL. Muses, the sixth panel in the Art of the Negro mural series, presents a canon of seventeen male African diasporic artists from the 13th-20th centuries alongside their medium.
Hale Aspacio Woodruff was an artist and art educator known for his murals, paintings, and prints from Cairo, IL. Interchange, the second panel in the Art of the Negro mural series, depicts Africans exchanging knowledge of arts and sciences in antiquity.
Hale Aspacio Woodruff was an artist and art educator known for his murals, paintings, and prints from Cairo, IL. Influences, the fifth panel in the Art of the Negro mural series, conveys the role of traditional African art in the development of 20th-century Western art movements.
Hale Aspacio Woodruff was an artist and art educator known for his murals, paintings, and prints from Cairo, IL. Dissipatation, the third panel in the Art of the Negro mural series, portrays the theft and disruption of African art and culture by Europeans through colonization.
Johnny Jones’s sculpture, “Armadillo,” features decorative embellishments along the body of the animal, especially the shell. The spiral motif is often found on the sculptures of student artists taught by Carroll Harris Simms. Armadillos, which utilize their shells for protection, are commonly found in Texas.
John Howard was an artist from Alcorn, MS. Arkansas Landscape shows a red house with a wooden gate, five posted signs, and six mailboxes in the foreground. The house is surrounded by dark green grass, leading to a mountaintop in the background. A sign pinned to a tree reads “For Sale” along with other titled signs throughout the landscape.
Lacy’s terracotta tower sculpture features cut-outs throughout the body. The top bears an abstract, smiling face with conical ears. The work is decorated with spirals and rolled balls of clay, both of which are among the signature embellishments used by students of Professor Simms. Lacy features this sculpture prominently in her Hannah Hall mural, where it appears as a building.
Lacy’s mural depicts houses from a variety of different civilizations and cultures, ranging from small circular huts to step pyramids. The center structure is a depiction of the terracotta sculpture she created under the instruction of Professor Carroll Harris Simms.
