Vol. 25 No. 28Dr. Biggers joined the faculty of the newly established Texas State University for Negroes in Houston, later Texas Southern University, where he established a well-known art department. In 1952-53, he painted a mural for the Blue Triangle YWCA in Houston, "The Contribution of Negro Women in American Life and Education." His research on African American women for the mural was so exhaustive that it became the basis for his doctoral dissertation at Penn State (1954).
With the help of a UNESCO fellowship in 1957, Dr. Biggers and his wife, Hazel Hales Biggers, visited the nations of Ghana, Togo, Dahomey (now the Republic of Benin) and Nigeria for six months. He documented his experiences in a book of drawings and text titled Ananse, The Web of Life in Africa, published by the University of Texas Press in 1962.
In 1967, Dr. Biggers was named a Distinguished Professor at Texas Southern University and in 1972 a Distinguished Alumnus by Penn State. In 1990, he received an honorary doctorate of humane letters from Hampton University.
Dr. Biggers retired from teaching in 1983 and later returned to Gastonia where he established a studio. In the spring of 1993, his triptych print, "The Ark," was displayed in the Paul Robeson Cultural Center on the University Park Campus. Originally conceived at the Brandywine Workshop in Philadelphia, the ark with its three panels depicts various symbols of Africa and of African American life and culture.
Two years later, an exhibition of his work, organized by the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston and Hampton University, was shown at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh; The Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Conn.; and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
By Paul A. Blaum
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