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.
Date Modified
2025-09-13
About This Record
The HCAC public history focused digital archive cataloging is an ongoing process, and we may update this record as we conduct additional research and review. We welcome your comments and feedback if you have more information to share about an item featured on the site, please contact us at: HCAC-DigiTeam@si.edu
Walter Washington Smith was an artist who often painted religious scenes and created city signs and posters from Clearfield, PA. April Blizzard is a painting of a neighborhood in a blizzard. The sidewalk, open street, and a house behind four barren trees are covered in blowing snow.
Cornett's work shows Stokely Carmichael with angelic features amidst raised hands. He was a key civil rights activist, a leader of the SNCC, and popularized the term "Black Power." He spoke at Texas Southern one month prior to the TSU Invasion, when Houston police invaded the campus, fired 5,000 rounds into dormitories, and arrested 488 students.
Henri Linton was an artist and art professor from Tuscaloosa, AL. Alone depicts a melancholy woman sitting in a chair. The muted blue background emphasizes her solemnity as she rests her head in solitude.
Dr. Eddie Jordan, Sr. was a Southern artist from Wichita Falls, TX. African Female and Animal is a wooden assemblage of its namesake made from repurposed furniture.
Dr. Eddie Jordan, Sr., was a Southern artist from Wichita Falls, TX. African Decree is a metal sculpture of a human-like figure. It has two legs with feet that stand on stilts and a middle section of the body with vertically stacked bolts. Sculpted metal parts stretch out to mimic arms, and the head has spiraled hair.
John Woodrow Wilson, a sculptor, painter, and printmaker from Roxbury, MA, was known for his creative portraits and stylistic approach to social justice. Adolescence is a sketch depiction of the social interiorities of urban life. A young boy faces the viewer in the foreground while groups of people socialize in the background.
This sketch by John Biggers is part of his planning process for his mural in Christia V. Adair Park, named for an iconic Houston civil rights activist. As part of this project, Biggers also designed a pavilion to contain this mural, drawing inspiration from the homes of the Dogon people of Mali. The mural itself features scenes from Adair's life interspersed with Biggers's own Afrocentric iconography.
Walter Augustus Simon was an art historian, professor, and artist best known for his abstract oil paintings from Petersburg, VA. Abstraction—The City—No. 3 depicts a city scene in front of a set of brownstones with abstracted bricks. Several Black people are conversing, relaxing, and playing around the building.
Barbara L. Gallon was an artist from Tallahassee, FL. Abstraction is a depiction of two main shape forms painted in a light tan, paired with a bright red square in the left. They are boarded by black paint and layered on a surface of dark red, brown, black, and tan.
This is an abstract work featuring adornments like swirls, eyes, and pyramids. This blend of symbols suggests themes of hybridity and the fusion of cultures. Professor Carroll Harris Simms' terracotta tradition was inspired by the shrine sculptures of the Nok and Ife peoples of West Africa. In diasporic contexts, the sculptures' significance evolves.
Ware’s blue, abstract painting is created in landscape form. Curved shapes are layered over an oval-shaped form. The top layer is a slanted prism with cutout shapes that slightly imitate the forms floating around. Abstract art of this sort is not commonly featured in the permanent collection of Texas Southern University.
William Artis was a sculptor from Washington, DC. A Terra-Cotta Head is a bust of a woman with a solemn expression. The bust has a slight head tilt with an elongated neck.
William Artis was a sculptor from Washington, NC. A Mother's Love is a limestone sculpture of a mother holding her daughter in her lap. The mother looks down affectionately as she cradles the child's head.
Taylor offers a snapshot of Houston’s Third Ward in the mid-20th century. Growing up in Third Ward, Taylor saw it grow and change. The scene is a busy one and depicts various storefronts and residents of the neighborhood. Taylor named the pool hall in the lower left corner after himself.
Elizabeth Catlett was an artist and educator from Washington, D.C., who repatriated to Mexico. Black is Beautiful: Mother and Son depicts a profile view of a Black woman and her child. Catlett captures the mother's grace and her son's curiosity as they look away from the viewer.
