This radiant work by Oliver Parson engulfs the viewer in the spiraling flow of a smiling woman's silky headwrap. The headwrap is a fashionable method of hair protection and expression of identity that is shared among women across the African diaspora.
Mills' painting is a portrait of an unknown woman, dressed conservatively in a turtleneck, with short hair and a pearl earring. As a part of the art curriculum, students are required to create portraits during elementary painting. Many of Mills’ pieces share this painting’s muted and dark color palette. Some of Mills’ classmates recall him being color-blind, perhaps partly explaining these color choices.
This painting by Charlene Claye shows a group of three people, including at least two women, fishing by a pond. This painting highlights one of the many types of labor Black women perform to support their families and communities. The broad, blue strokes extend a sense of timelessness and depth.
Oliver's painting shows a group of shirtless men looking towards an unseen figure or force. The painting makes heavy use of crosshatching and red and black hues. The composition bears significant resemblance to Oliver's mural Fire Fighters, which can be seen in the 1978 book, Black Art in Houston: The Texas Southern University Experience.
Settles' painting shows a Black man abused by a group of 5 police, while a group looks on in the background. This painting reflects frustration with police brutality and racism towards the Black community. Settles replicated this image (of the police surrounding the man) in another of his paintings with a different, more abstract background.
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.
This painting by Jesse Sifuentes shows a landscape scene featuring cactuses. Several TSU art alumni have recalled that Dr. John Biggers taught them based on themes more than techniques. Many works from the 1970s use geometric styles, perhaps a reflection of lessons from the time. Sifuentes went on to become a ceramics professor at Texas Southern.
Oliver's painting is of a young girl, standing by herself, with large eyes and a mournful expression. She is positioned on dry, rocky land with a single flower in her hand, perhaps alluding to feelings of emptiness and desertion. Behind her is a bleak skyline, with birds overhead. They are the girl’s only companions in the painting.
Morris’ painting is a golden portrait of boxer Muhammad Ali raising his fists and preparing for a strike. The painting is inspired by a photograph taken in the 1960s at the height of his athletic career. Ali gained acclaim, controversy, and celebrity not just for his boxing achievements, but also for his conversion to Islam, civil rights activism, and refusal to fight in the Vietnam War.
Curnell’s painting is a pre-study of her mural “Awakening” in Hannah Hall. The mural shows a reflection of Curnell’s past, present, and future life. She is seen pictured here as an infant, at her current age, and her future self as an elder. The quilt that stretches across the composition features various religious symbols, including the cross, the star of David, and the ankh.
Settles' mural study depicts muscular, mostly naked men and women seemingly being sucked into a portal. An angel attempts to pull them away, while two men are stripped of their skin and bones. The figures’ hair is painted with great detail and seems imbued with special powers. The backdrop shows a horizon of shotgun homes. Settles’ final mural nearly replicates this earlier draft.
Samples' painting is a study of his mural created in Hannah Hall. The design unfolds like a dream, with each panel above the central figure (the artist himself), who is asleep on a table, revealing a constellation of scenes from the artists’ 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. The shadowy dogs along the sides of the study were not included in the final mural.
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.
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 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.
Morris’ painting is a golden, close-up portrait of singer and performer Prince; his head is slightly bowed and his eyes are closed. The painting is inspired by Prince 3, a photograph of the singer taken by Herb Ritts in 1991. Before his death, Prince became one of the best-selling musicians of all time, celebrated for his soaring vocals, multi-instrumental skills, and pioneering aesthetics and sounds.
Parson’s painting shows a young girl shielding her face. To the left, a crow holds a coin and a dollar bill is on a fishing line; to the right Jesus is crucified, below a perched crow. The crows may allude to Jim Crow, which made racism law from after the Civil War until the 1960s; crows are also a symbol of death. The dollar bill as bait perhaps suggests the corrupting nature of money.
This work, by Oliver Parson, is a calm and dreamlike scene of a child sitting in a prairie, as an angel and a person both race towards him. Both figures may represent salvation; the person aims to rescue him from death, while the angel tries to save him from Earth. A faint glow emanates from the child.
Donato's painting shows a crowd gathering around him after a car crash, but not rendering aid. Donato crafts a scene that blends reality and fiction: he portrays himself bloodied like Jesus on the cross, surrounded by real neighbors of his from Frenchtown, a section of Houston's Fifth Ward, but there was no such car crash.
Leonard Henderson's cool-colored composition depicts a calm landscape of farmers working a field next to train tracks. The tracks running next to the field may hint at the contrast between urban and rural life, and show the development of rural areas during the turn of the 20th century.
Oliver's painting depicts an accord between settlers and a group of indigenous Americans. Colonizers consistently broke their agreements with tribes and took more and more land from them. Indigenous peoples of the American Southwest are frequent subjects of Oliver's work.
Lloyd’s painting depicts the facade of the historic Wesley Chapel AME Church, founded in Houston’s Third Ward in the 1870s. The landscape and sky are painted in geometric form, commonly found in 1970s TSU student artwork. The church is set to be renovated and turned into a multi-purpose complex with a gospel music museum, recording studio, and affordable housing units.
