STRONG PORTRAYLS GROWING UP BLACK – John Thomas Biggers, the painter that had grow nex to the “Shotgun houses”

JOHN THOMAS BIGGERS – John Thomas Biggers was an African-American muralist and studied African myths and legends. He was drawn to the creation stories of a matriarchal deistic system. Biggers is an artist whose strong portrayals of African-American life, combine images of his childhood, his travels in Africa and his feeling, about growing up black in America. He was born in a April day of 1924 in a shotgun house in North Carolina, inside a close family that valued creativity.

JOHN THOMAS BIGGERS – After graduating he attended Hampton Institute, where he took an art class with a special man (Viktor Lowenfeld), that exposed his students to works by African Americans. During years he was introduced to Mexican muralists (Orozeo, Siqueiros and Diego Rivera). In 1946, he enrolled at Pennsylvania State, where he earned a bachelor’s and master’s degrees in art education.

JOHN THOMAS BIGGERS – Visiting Smithsonian American Art Museum (1st Floor, South Wing), you can admire its special tempera and oil on convas, named “Shotgun, Third Ward”. One of his best known painting (oil and acrylic on canvas appropriately called “Shotguns”), is considered by some critics the black American Gothic. Yes, inside your eyes remain what one of the most important African American artists of the twentieth century painted, also for you. He died at age 76 in Houston. You can see more on Meeting Benches, looking for: http://meetingbenches.com/2016/05/john-thomas-biggers-19242001-american-pinters-the-unmistakable-and-remarkable-influence-named-biggers/