With the help of Precinct One Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis’s Dr. John Biggers bus, the Blue Triangle Community Center will host a celebration of the late muralist’s 100th birthday that includes a panel discussion on Saturday.
The electric vehicle, the latest in Precinct One’s Moving Monuments that feature iconic people and historic places in Houston on buses, will be parked outside of the Third Ward community center at 3005 McGowen St.
Moving Monuments is a public art project meant to reflect the shared ideals and values of Precinct One. The project also elevates social justice heroes who broke down barriers, fought for equality, and led movements toward justice. The fleet includes 14 vehicles that feature people such as labor activist Cesar Chavez, abolitionist Frederick Douglass, Rev. Bill Lawson, President Abraham Lincoln, Gov. Ann Richards and others.
“We are extremely honored to feature Dr. Biggers in our Moving Monuments series, especially since the bus is being introduced to the public on his 100th birthday,” Commissioner Ellis said. “His murals, including one at Precinct One’s Tom Bass Park Community Center and another at Adair Park, are etched in the deep history of African-Americans and Africans.”
At the Blue Triangle -- which has a Biggers’ mural,” Contributions of Negro Women to American Life and Education“ – a program kicks off at 10 a.m. Saturday with a discussion on Biggers’ life and his style of art as well as his legacy as founder and chairman of the Texas Southern University Art Department. The event is hosted by the Blue Triangle Multi-Cultural Association Inc.
Biggers, born in 1924 in Gastonia, N.C., attended Hampton Institute (now University) in Hampton, Va. in 1941, when he discovered his love of art.
After two years in the U.S. Navy during World War II, he later received master’s (1948) and doctoral (1954) degrees at Pennsylvania State University. He moved to Houston in 1949 to become founder and chairman of Texas State University’s (now TSU) art department, a post he held until 1983.
Biggers’ murals are at several public locations in Houston. Replicas of some of his murals are at the Julia C. Hester House in Fifth Ward and the Harris County Juvenile Detention Center in downtown Houston. His works are at Hampton University and Winston-Salem State University. He also has paintings in museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Mint Museum of Art, and Gibbes Museum of Art.