A Life on Paper: The Drawings and Lithographs of John Thomas Biggers

About this book

John Thomas Biggers (19242001) was a major African American artist who inspired countless others through his teaching murals paintings and drawings. After receiving conventional art training at Hampton Institute and Pennsylvania State he had his personal and artistic breakthrough in 1957 when he spent six months in the newly independent country of Ghana. From this time forward he integrated African abstract elements with his rural Southern images to create a personal iconography. His new approach made him famous as his personal discovery of African heritage fit in well with the growing U.S. civil rights movement. He is best known for his murals at Hampton University Winston-Salem University and Texas Southern but the drawings and lithographs that lie behind the murals have received scant attentionuntil now. Theisen interviewed Dr. Biggers during the last thirteen years of his life and was welcomed into his studio innumerable times. Together they selected representative works for this volume some of which have not been previously published for a general audience. After his death in 2001 his widow continued to work closely with Theisen resulting in a book that is intimate and informative for both the scholar and the student