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 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. This work is very similar to the leftmost section of Morris's Hannah Hall mural and may have served as a partial study for the mural. Oversized, detailed hands and birds are frequent motifs in the artist's work.
Frederick D. Jones, Jr. is a mid-twentieth-century African-American artist from South Carolina. Our Lady of Peace is a surrealist painting utilizing nature and religious symbols. The painting depicts a veiled Black woman with an elongated neck holding a flower and feeding a bird in a church with broken stained-glass windows
Frank W. Neal was a multidisciplinary artist born in Texas but raised in New York City. Oppression depicts a child watching a weary woman sitting at a table. The woman is at the table, resting her head in her hands in a yellow shirt. The child and the house's interior, including a vanity, is sepia-toned.
This mural reflects themes of emancipation and progress. The figure of a Black man raises his fist, while broken chains dangle from his waist. The bales of cotton and chains allude to slavery. Black men in various professions represent changes brought by emancipation.
Hall's colorful painting highlights the view of a busy street corner. The main figure walks through the scene with tense shoulders and a balled fist, with a crowd of people lining the background. Graffiti, dice, and litter are seen on the street, sidewalk, and walls. This may be a depiction of Hall’s experiences growing up in Sunnyside, a historically Black neighborhood in southeast Houston.
Sifuentes’ print shows a series of shotgun houses. The composition portrays Oleander Homes, a public housing complex in Galveston, Texas, the artist's hometown. The complex was destroyed by Hurricane Ike in 2008 and was rebuilt and reopened in September 2024. Shotgun houses and urban environments are common settings for Texas Southern student artworks.
Donato’s painting portrays an elderly woman feeding hungry birds. This particular geometric style of painting is characteristic of students of Dr. Biggers who attended Texas Southern in the mid-to-late 1970s. The mother-child relationship is a common motif in the artwork of TSU students, usually a human mother and child or an animal mother and child. This painting seems to be unique in its depiction of a cross-species maternal relationship.
Dr. Eddie Jordan, Sr. was a Southern artist from Wichita Falls, TX. Old Slave is a granite sculpture depicting an elderly Black man. The subject has a full, long beard and is smoking a pipe.
The print by Booker shows a rural landscape featuring a small, neglected house. A tire swing and clothesline hang from the two trees. The area appears not to be frequented by people, as suggested by the boarded window, overgrown weeds, and mushrooms.
Lois Mailou Jones was an artist and art educator known for her costumes, textile designs, watercolors, paintings, and collages. Old House Near Frederick, Virginia depicts a slightly dilapidated house near Frederick, VA, a county about 50 miles from Washington, D.C., in watercolor. There are two children on the porch and two children and a chicken.
This print by Bennie Settles shows a mother and child standing in a field and feeding chickens and other birds. Settles' illustration of seeds is reminiscent of the way John Biggers paints seeds in his mural "Web of Life." Settles' work can be recognized by the power imbued in his careful portrayal of Black hair.
John Arterberry was an artist who worked in the art department at Langston University from Tallahassee, Florida. Of the Soil is a print depicting two farmers working the land. The two workers, dressed in overalls and straw hats, are bent over, picking crops to place in their wagons.
Geraldine McCullough was a renowned painter and sculptor from Kingston, AR. Of Hope depicts three figures picking flowers along a picket fence. In the foreground are two women and a man; one of the women is bent over in a red dress and holds a yellow flower. In the background is an urban skyline.
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.
This large, oblong ceramic plate created by Carroll Harris Simms has a red glaze. This piece is among those that Professor Simms chose to feature in the 1976 book he co-authored with Dr. Biggers and John Edward Weems, Black Art in Houston: The Texas Southern Experience.
The red and orange-hued apocalyptic scene shows the moments after an explosion. In the middle, a dying woman’s soul leaves her body. The mural appears to have been left unfinished, as the baby, one hand, and parts of the foreground and background are not painted in.
Biggers and Harvey Johnson, a former TSU art professor and student of Dr. Biggers, painted this mural in the lobby of the Jesse H. Jones School of Business. It speaks to the history of commerce and the wealth of Africa. NUBIA is full of visual symbols drawn from African art, including ceremonial combs, gold weights, and several meaningful animals, like the hippo, buzzard, sacred ibis, double crocodile, spider, tortoise, and more.
Caldwell’s painting reflects a comical scene from an art museum. An elderly woman walks past the artworks exhibited, glaring with a dubious expression on her face. Her posture and facial expression suggest disapproval and criticism. The leftmost piece pictured in Caldwell’s painting is “Landscape” by Marrion Cole, a textile piece from Texas Southern’s permanent collection. This is one example of how art students interact with TSU’s art legacy.
Alvin Smith was an artist from Brooklyn, NY. Neshoba Spectre is a collage that memorializes the Freedom Summer murders in Neshoba County, Mississippi. The piece displays the names of the victims: James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner.
John Woodrow Wilson was a sculptor, painter, printmaker, and educator from Roxbury, MA. Negro Woman depicts a Black woman looking toward the distance from the side of her eyes. She is standing outside in a peach-colored shirt with the sun reflecting off of her face. Behind her are large buildings and a dark blue sky.
Elizabeth Catlett was an artist and educator from Washington, D.C., who was repatriated to Mexico. Negro Woman is a print depicting a dark-skinned woman looking off into the distance. The piece is in Black and white, aside from her brown face. The woman is wearing a jacket pinned at the collar, an undershirt, and a straw hat.
Elizabeth Catlett was an artist and educator from Washington, D.C., who repatriated to Mexico. Negro Woman is a wooden sculpture of a Black woman. Catlett crafts the woman with an intense stare through careful sculpting and inlaid onyx eyes.
Robert Blackburn was a notable printmaker from Summit, NJ who grew up in Harlem, NY. Negro Mother depicts a Black woman with a sorrowful expression. Balckburn uses geometric shapes to emphasize her features adn the details of the background.
Dr. Eddie Jordan, Sr. was a Southern artist from Wichita Falls, TX. Negro Girl Skipping Rope depicts a young Black girl in the process of playing jump rope. The rope is positioned over her head as she prepares to hop over the rope with one leg lifted.
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 graduated from Texas Southern University in 1972.
This terracotta features a snail-like creature with long legs, adorned with spiraled embellishments for the eyes and outer shell. The spiral motifs are placed in a symmetrical pattern on both sides of this sculpture. The clay is mixed with grog to create a better texture and prevent the terracotta from shrinking when fired.
Samples’ mural unfolds like a dream, with each panel above the sleeping artist revealing a constellation of scenes from the artist’s youth. Lower window panels evoke a harmonious existence with nature and animals, while upper panels reveal struggles with racism in the South and his mother’s death.
Irene V. Clark was a diasporic folklore artist from Washington, D.C. My Great, Great, Great, Great Grandfather's Cousin is a cubist portrait of a Black string musician wearing a cape and turban. Clark creates a symmetrical arch framing the subject and a perched hummingbird.
James H. Malone was a graphic artist, cartoonist, writer, and painter from Winterville, GA. My Classmate is a portrait drawing of a young Black boy in a school uniform. He sits in a chair with his hands on his lap, looking at the bottom left corner.
Tinker’s painting is a study of a section of her Hannah Hall mural. It depicts a naked woman bending over in front of a large globe. On the right side, the progression of human development, from embryo to fetus, is depicted. The final version of the mural features all of the pictured elements, but aligned differently and complemented by many additional images.
