John Thomas Biggers

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, in my own words. Now, some stories start with a house. This one starts under one.

Paul and Cora Biggers had a boy in Gastonia, North Carolina — born April 13, 1924 — and before long, young John Thomas Biggers and his brother Joe crawled underneath the family home, got their hands in the clay, and built the entire town of Gastonia. Right there in the dirt. That right there ought to tell you everything you need to know about the man before we even get started.

In 1941, Biggers enrolled at Hampton Institute — later Hampton University — down in Virginia. He went there to become a heating engineer. Reasonable enough plan.

But then he crossed paths with a man named Viktor Lowenfeld, an Austrian Jew teaching art, and that plan quietly dissolved. Biggers changed his major to art. Some encounters just do that to a person.

His education got interrupted by the Navy, 1943 to 1945. When he came out the other side, he followed Lowenfeld — his teacher, his mentor — up to Pennsylvania State University. And he didn't just show up.

He earned his bachelor's degree, his master's degree, and his doctorate. All of them. In 1949, Biggers and his wife Hazel Hales Biggers packed up and moved to Houston, Texas.

He had been asked to head a brand-new art department at Texas State University for Negroes — the institution now known as Texas Southern University. He built that department from the ground up, and he did something else too: he required his students to create murals on the walls of Hannah Hall. Not suggested.

Required. He believed in leaving something on the walls. In 1957, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization — UNESCO — gave him a grant to study and travel in Africa.

That journey lit something in him. Out of that inspiration came works like his renowned Web of Life mural, and the world got to see what happens when a man from Gastonia, North Carolina carries a lifetime of vision all the way to the African continent and brings it back in paint. Biggers won numerous awards throughout his career — work that, in his own words, portrayed the spirit and style of the negro people.

But here is where the story turns harder. Jim Crow laws, excluding African Americans from many institutions, sometimes kept Biggers from receiving his own accolades. A man celebrated by UNESCO, building murals into the bones of a university, occasionally couldn't walk through the front door of the place honoring him.

That is a fact the marker does not soften, and neither will I. Ultimately, the art spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. Biggers became the subject of a major national retrospective, and his work found its way into major museum collections across the country.

He passed away on January 25, 2001. But his legacy didn't go with him. It stayed — in the collections, yes, and in the murals his students painted on the walls of Hannah Hall.

A boy who once built a whole town out of clay made sure the walls around him would never be bare.

What the marker says

(April 13, 1924 – January 25, 2001) John Thomas Biggers was born to Paul and Cora Biggers in Gastonia, North Carolina. His artistic creativity emerged at a young age when he and his brother, Joe, crawled under their home and used clay to model the entire town of Gastonia. In 1941, Biggers enrolled at Hampton Institute (later Hampton University) in Virginia, intending to become a heating engineer. Instead he came under the artistic instruction of Viktor Lowenfeld, an Austrian Jew, and Biggers changed his major to art. His education was interrupted by service in the Navy, 1943-1945. The next year, he followed his teacher and mentor, Lowenfeld, to Pennsylvania State University, where Biggers earned his bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees. In 1949, Biggers and his wife, Hazel Hales Biggers, moved to Houston when he became head of a new art department at Texas State University for Negroes (now Texas Southern University). Biggers nurtured his students’ artistic talents and required them to create murals on the walls of Hannah Hall. In 1957, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) gave him a grant to study and travel in Africa, an award that inspired future artistic works such as his renowned Web of Life mural. Throughout his career, Biggers won numerous awards for his own art, which portrayed “the spirit and style of the negro people.” However, Jim Crow laws excluding African Americans from many institutions sometimes kept Biggers from receiving his own accolades. Ultimately, the artist was the subject of a major national retrospective and his art is included in major museum collections. Although Biggers passed away in 2001, his legacy lives on through his art and his students’ murals. (2012)