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.
Calvin Burnett was a graphic artist, illustrator, painter, designer, and art teacher from Cambridge, MA. The Box is a surrealist drawing of a Black woman seated in a box. The drawing's geometric complexity and the woman's reflections evoke an uncanny feeling.
A political cartoon featuring a pig teaching a classroom of children with the quote “Today children we are going to talk about George Washington the father of your country and how he freed you from the colonial powers of England.” The 5th point from the Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point program is printed at the bottom of the page.
Geraldine McCullough was a renowned painter and sculptor from Kingston, AR. The Black Knight depicts an abstract figure riding a creature like a horse. The figure is primarily black, with a twisted torso, and has masquerade-like attributes. The creature is predominantly black, with both ominous and mythical characteristics.
Harper T. Phillips was an artist from Courtland, AL. The Ant is a painting with numerous geometric forms and lines in a vertical composition. Each white, yellow, green, and black shape lay in pocketed areas overlapping black borders and lines.
Richmond Barthe was a sculptor from Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. The Angry Christ is an intensely expressive bust of Christ. The bust is incredibly detailed, emphasizing Jesus of Nazareth's Semitic features.
James Newton was a painter, printmaker, scholar, and professor from Delaware. The American Sixties is an assemblage that symbolizes the political turmoil and militarization that arose in the 1960s after the Civil Rights Movement.
J. Brooks Dendy III was a painter, graphic artist, and educator from Pittsburgh, PA. The Allegheny Valleys depicts an aerial view of a mountain range, valley, and river in Western Pennsylvania.
This Texas Senate resolution commends the art students and faculty of Texas State University for Negroes (now Texas Southern University) for their exhibition in the State Capitol in April 1951. It is notable that this exhibition took place years before desegregation.
Shirley Bolton was a painter from Athens, GA. Tenement is a multimedia depiction of the entrance to a shared housing space. The dimensional browns of the buildings indicate the age and use of the tenement space. Three cardboard pieces on top of the painted surface add texture and form to the piece.
O'Higgins' print shows two men balancing on a board and working on a cylindrical structure. Unlike most of the works held by the University Museum, O’Higgins had no connection to Texas Southern; this piece was donated by a collector. O'Higgins was an established artist in the 20th century and was mentored by Diego Rivera.
Jewell Woodard Simon was an internationally acclaimed artist, teacher, and poet from Houston, TX. Teen Enigma is a plaster bust of a young girl looking into the distance with her head raised. She is wearing a collared shirt with the top button clasped.
This print by Harry Vital shows a woman in a swimsuit tilting her head upwards. Dr. John T. Biggers taught students the craft of printmaking while he was a professor at Texas Southern University. Vital followed in Biggers' footsteps and became a longtime art professor at TSU.
Charles W. Stallings was a painter, printmaker, sculptor, and educator from Gary, IN. Swamp Fever is a print of two swamp creatures. Stallings uses stark black, red, and green lines and shadows to create cartoon-like renditions of swamp creatures with shocked expressions.
Focusing on the Sterling Student Life Center, the artist captures the lively activities of students and reflects the importance of Black fraternities and sororities in HBCU student life. Realism is paired with the surreal imagery of fantastic figures dancing around the music blasting from a boombox.
Charles E. Haines was an artist from Indianapolis, IN. Sunday Morning is an urban cityscape under a bright blue sky. In the foreground of the piece is an elevated railway and residential buildings, In the background is a red brick building and a church's spire.
“Sun Stool,” created by Anthony Haynes, resembles an Ashanti stool, a seat for royalty of the Ashanti Empire. The sculpture is decorated with spiral embellishments, triangles, moons, and other indentations. Facial features are also included at the front head of the stool; the rear face of the stool resembles a baboon's face.
This drawing by Oliver Parson shows a group of emaciated children seated on a checkerboard patterned floor. There is also a chick, just hatched from its egg, that seems to be struggling to survive. Parson has an incredible talent for conveying powerful emotions in his works. The checkerboard and other sacred geometry imagery appear frequently in the works of Dr. Biggers's students.
Washington’s landscape painting shows a suburban setting, with a paved road, low homes, and a mix of palm and deciduous trees. Washington grew up in Port Arthur, Texas, a small oil city along the Gulf Coast. This scene is perhaps reminiscent of Washington’s home and early life. Dr. John Biggers encouraged Texas Southern student artists to create art based on what they saw – perhaps this instruction inspired Washington’s painting.
Zenobia Hammonds was an artist from Hampton, VA. Student Artist is a sketch of a male student working at a tabletop easel. The artist has his head resting on his hand as he creates his own art.
Oliver's mural reflects his classical painting style in a composition that shows Black men struggling to lift up an imposing weight above them, represented by the closed window on the wall. The mural appears to have been painted over an older design, as can be seen in the lower right section.
Walter Augustus Simon was an art historian, professor, and artist best known for his abstract oil paintings from Petersburg, VA. String Dance shows two women dancing with a thin white string. Their arms are stretched above their heads to pull the string as they dance together barefooted.
Lucille Malkia Roberts was a painter and educator from Washington, D.C. Street in Senegal is an abstract depiction of people shopping on a market street in Senegal, West Africa. Roberts uses muted colors to create the robust marketplace environment and emphasizes the shoppers and their goods with Black silhouettes.
Lee’s collage speaks to the 1998 lynching of James Byrd, Jr., in Jasper, Texas. Byrd’s murder provided part of the impetus for the passage of stronger anti-hate crime laws in Texas and federally. The collage references the anti-lynching poem/song “Strange Fruit,” made famous by Billie Holiday. Lee, sometimes called “Da Mayor of Fifth Ward,” grew up in Houston’s Fifth Ward, but his family traces its roots to Jasper, where three white supremacists lynched Byrd and desecrated his body.
In this drawing by Willie Moe, a group of children gather around an elderly man in a rocking chair to hear his stories. Oral storytelling is an essential part of preserving the past, particularly in communities that have been denied the opportunity to write their own histories.
Alfa Bell was an artist from Montgomery, AL. Still Life with Fruit is an abstracted print of inanimate kitchen objects with an abstracted background. The piece features a cup, pieces of fruit, and gourds on top of a white sheet in front of a water pitcher and a plate.
Howard E. Lewis was an Art professor and Korean War veteran from Columbus, OH. Still Life with Fish is a watercolor depiction of two fish and a vase on a table. Lewis uses stark shapes, colors, and patterns to create the fish, vase, table, and background.
William S. Carter was an abstract, landscape, still-life, and figurative painter from St. Louis, Missouri. Still Life embodies its namesake by depicting a table of commonplace objects with a muted background. Carter's subjects include a teacup, a vase with flowers, fruit, a feather, and an empty vase on top of a haphazard cloth.
David Driskell was a Black artist, scholar, and curator known for his fusion of African abstract forms and modern aesthetics. Still Life is an abstract print of inanimate kitchen objects. It features a bowl of fruit, plates of food, vases of flowers, and other objects atop a table.
Henri Linton was an artist and art professor from Tuscaloosa, AL. Stanley is a print of a solemn Black man. The subject rests his head in his hand as he looks past the viewer.
McNeil creates a scene of Black spirituality and worship, surrounding images of Black men with the traditional symbols of the cross, the lamb, the dove, and the wine of communion. Placing two of the figures against stained glass windows yields a direct connection with the interior of the Black church.
