Biography from Michael Rosenfeld Gallery:
| Known for his narrative murals and outstanding draftsmanship, John Biggers dedicated his work to the depiction of the human condition. Born in Gastonia, North Carolina, he studied at Hampton Institute (1941-1946) - later renamed Hampton University - under Victor Lowenfeld and Charles White.
In 1943, Biggers’s mural "Dying Soldier" was featured in the Museum of Modern Art’s landmark exhibition "Young Negro Art", organized by Lowenfeld.
After serving in the United States Navy (1943-1945), he enrolled in Pennsylvania State University (where Lowenfeld had relocated), earning a B.S. and M.S. (1948), and Ph.D. (1954). In 1949, Biggers moved to Houston, Texas where he founded and then chaired the art department at Texas Southern University.
In 1950, he was awarded first prize at the annual exhibition of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston for his painting, "The Cradle". In 1957, he traveled to Africa on a UNESCO grant to study Western African cultural traditions, becoming one of the first black artists to travel to Africa. This opportunity, which he described as “the most significant in my life’s experiences,” led to the publication of "Ananse: The Web of Life in Africa" (1961), a book of drawings and text based on his journeys in Ghana, Nigeria and other parts of Africa.
Whether drawing African women dancing or creating one of his twenty-seven public murals, Biggers drew inspiration from his ancestral heritage, African art, Southern black culture, nature, and everyday experiences. Often labeled a social realist for his figurative social commentary of the 1940s, Biggers did work continually evolved over five decades, and in 1995, the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and Hampton University Art Museum organized his first comprehensive retrospective, exposing the depth of his oeuvre.
John Biggers died in 2001, leaving behind a body of work that, as Maya Angelou stated, “leads us through his expressions into the discovery of ourselves at our most intimate level.”
Michael Rosenfeld Gallery is the exclusive representative of the Estate of John Biggers. |
Biography from AskART:
| Following are excerpts from the New York Times obituary, January 30, 2001,
by Holland Cotter:
John Biggers, a painter, printmaker and sculptor known for his
meticulous depictions of African and African-American life, died on
Thursday at his home in Houston. He was 76.
The cause was a heart attack, said Carl Ards, Mr. Biggers's brother-in- law.
Mr.
Biggers's art, often in the form of public murals, was grounded in the
humanistic spirit and social realist narrative style of the 1930's and
40's. Over the years it grew increasingly emblematic, with figures and
architectural forms arranged in intricate patterns that suggested
quilts, African textiles and modernist geometric abstraction.
Mr.
Biggers was born in Gastonia, N.C., in 1924, the youngest of seven
children, in a house built by his father, a schoolteacher, farmer and
Baptist minister. In 1941 he enrolled at Hampton Institute, later
Hampton University, in Virginia, He intended to study plumbing, and
included a boiler room drawing with his application. But in his first
year, he enrolled in a class taught by the influential emigre art
educator Viktor Lowenfeld, who became his mentor.
Lowenfeld
included Mr. Biggers's mural "Dying Soldier" in "Young Negro Art," an
exhibition of work by Hampton students at the Museum of Modern Art in
1943. Mr. Biggers also studied at Hampton with Elizabeth Catlett and
Charles White, who became his close friends.
After two years
in the Navy, he entered Pennsylvania State University, where he earned
a master's degree in art education in 1948 and a Ph.D. in 1954. He also
created a series of murals for the University.
In 1949 Mr.
Biggers joined the faculty of Texas State University for Negroes in
Houston, now Texas Southern University, where he established and was
chairman of the art department.
He was awarded first prize in
1950 for his painting "The Cradle" at the annual exhibition at the
Museum of Fine Arts in Houston. Segregationist policies, however,
allowed black visitors into the museum only on Thursdays, so he could
not attend the show's opening. Later he completed many public murals in
Houston and elsewhere, including two in 1991 for Winston-Salem State
University in North Carolina. Most of his murals are still in place.
In
1957 Mr. Biggers and his wife, Hazel, spent six months traveling in
Ghana, Benin, Nigeria and Togo on a Unesco grant to study Western
African cultural traditions. Afterward, African design motifs and
scenes of African life became important parts of his work. He returned
to Africa in 1969, 1984 and 1987.
He had one-man exhibitions at
the Houston museum (1962), the African- American Cultural Center in
Dallas (1978), the California Museum of Afro- American History and
Culture in Los Angeles (1983) and Hampton University Museum (1990). In
1995 the Houston and Hampton museums organized a retrospective, "The
Art of John Biggers: View from the Upper Room," that traveled to
Boston, Hartford and Raleigh, N.C.
Mr. Biggers retired from
Texas Southern University in 1983. He was awarded an honorary doctor of
letters degree from Hampton University in 1990.
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John Biggers is also mentioned in these AskART essays:
Black American Artists
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