This exhibition addresses the question posed by African American poet Countee Cullen in 1926: “What is Africa to me?” This exhibition provides a number of examples from twentieth-century African American artists—both trained and untrained—that visually respond to this question. These modern artists draw heavily on African influence, while simultaneously reinterpreting it for a different time and place. The exhibition surveys the work of forty-five artists, including unknown Africans and Haitians, through photographs, posters, and concise texts. For more information, contact the Ozuna Library at Palo Alto College.
Events
February 2–28, 2021
Exhibition
February 27—April 10, 2021
Exhibition
Melina Mara began photographing the thirteen women in the U.S. Senate in 2001, continuing as their number grew to fourteen in 2003. Changing the Face of Power: Women in the U.S. Senate, the exhibition based on her work, was created by the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at The University of Texas at Austin, and is presented in partnership with the Humanities Texas traveling exhibitions program. For more information, please contact the East Texas Oil Museum.
March 3—31, 2021
Exhibition
Drawn from files of the Texas Agricultural Extension Service archives at Texas A&M University, this Humanities Texas traveling exhibition uses photographs and explanatory texts to convey a sense of the lives of rural Texas women, helpful programs of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Extension Service, and the changes that swept across rural Texas in the Great Depression and World War II. For more information, contact the Ozuna Library at Palo Alto College.
July 10—August 14, 2021
Exhibition
In the early 1970s, Bill Wittliff visited a ranch in northern Mexico where the vaqueros still worked cattle in traditional ways. Wittliff photographed the vaqueros as they went about daily chores that had changed little since the first Mexican cowherders learned to work cattle from a horse's back. Wittliff captured a way of life that now exists only in memory and in the photographs included in this exhibition. This Humanities Texas traveling exhibition features photographs with bilingual narrative text that reveal the muscle, sweat, and drama that went into roping a calf in thick brush or breaking a wild horse in the saddle. For more information, contact the East Texas Oil Museum.
September 4–
November 27, 2021
November 27, 2021
Exhibition
State Fair is a visual distillation of Arthur Grace's photographic odyssey through fairs in ten states—California, Colorado, Florida, Indiana, Kansas, Minnesota, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Virginia. Time and again, regardless of geographical location, Grace's images deftly capture the strange mixture of the traditional, the kitsch, and the off-the-wall that is unique to these annual gatherings, which began as a celebration of rural American life and have evolved into super-sized extravaganzas. State Fair is an exhibition by the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at The University of Texas at Austin, presented in partnership with Humanities Texas. For further information regarding this event, please contact the Bell County Museum.
October 30—December 11, 2021
Exhibition
Photographer Rick Williams has captured images of workers and work places in three diverse industries that constitute the three pillars of the Texas economy: ranching, oil, and technology. Working Hands: An Exhibition of Photographs by Rick Williams features forty finely detailed photographs that evoke a powerful sense of what it must feel like to engage in the work depicted, as well as the unique character each industry brings to the Texas landscape. For more information, contact the East Texas Oil Museum.
August 20—October 1, 2022
Exhibition
Based on the Texas Monthly October 2017 cover story, “Voices from the Storm,” this exhibition features the stories of sixteen individuals who survived, witnessed, and assisted others during the five days of rain brought on by Hurricane Harvey. Using story panels, audio, exclusive photographs, and content from more than a dozen Texas Monthly staff members who covered the hurricane, Unsinkable: Voices from the Storm gives viewers insight into what it was like for Texans affected by the storm. For more information, please contact the East Texas Oil Museum.
October 22—December 3, 2022
Exhibition
This Humanities Texas traveling exhibition includes forty-four facsimile prints of exceptional pen-and-ink drawings by Clifford K. Berryman that highlight timeless aspects of the American campaign and election process. Although faces and personalities change, Berryman's cartoons illustrate how the political process in our democracy has remained remarkably consistent. The cartoons provide relevant commentary and fascinating insight into the campaigns and elections of today. For more information, please contact the East Texas Oil Museum.