Texas Southern art alumnus Bertram (Bert) Samples is pictured here admiring his mural, which he painted on a first floor wall of Hannah Hall. Samples' mural shows the artist sleeping on his desk after his mother died, dreaming and remembering moments from his life. Samples went on to become one of the founders of Project Rowhouses, a Third Ward-based community art and social impact organization.
In this photograph, Dr. John Biggers opens the door to Texas Southern's art building, which was dedicated as the John T. Biggers Art Center in 1995. Dallas-based artist Jean Lacy stands to the left of Dr. Biggers. Biggers founded the university's art department in 1949 and retired in 1983.
Texas Southern art alumni Jesse Sifuentes and Earl Jones are pictured in this photograph from the mid 1970s. They are seen here in the ceramics room of the John T. Biggers Art Center, seated in the trash cans where clay was stored. Sifuentes later went on to teach ceramics at Texas Southern University.
This image was captured by Earlie Hudnall, Jr., longtime TSU campus photographer and student of Dr. Biggers. This photo is of Biggers’ mural Family Unity, located on TSU’s campus in the student center dining hall. The mural was commissioned by the student body in the mid-1970s, and reflects themes of family, ancestry, and rural & urban house structures.
This photograph shows, from left to right, Dr. John T. Biggers, Dr. Alvia J. Wardlaw, and Roy DeCarava. Wardlaw, the founder of the University Museum at Texas Southern, previously served as a curator at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, where in 1975 she organized the first retrospective of DeCarava’s photographs. Biggers and DeCarava were mutual admirers; DeCarava appreciated Biggers’ sense of African history, and Biggers praised DeCarava’s attention to the common man.
The pre-sketch stage of Texas Southern alumnus J.W. Sampson's mural on the first floor of Hannah Hall is shown here. Before he took paint to the wall, Sampson first made a grid (to help with scaling up to the large mural size) and then drew out his intended design. His final, geometric design is characteristic of Dr. Biggers's teaching at the time.
Pictured here, left to right, are Texas Southern art alumni Bert Samples, John C. Davis, Harvey Johnson, Leon Renfro, former art student Rickey Donato, and Professor Carroll Harris Simms walking on the campus of TSU. Johnson and Renfro would later go on to teach art at TSU.
