The Moody’s summer exhibition Figurative Histories brings together a select group of Texas-based artists whose work is figurative in nature and is characterized by a heightened sensibility towards personal and sociopolitical histories. The featured artists­ – Letitia Huckaby, Earlie Hudnall, Jr., David McGee, and Delita Martin – center the human figure in their compositions, specifically the Black body, as a means of mining the past in order to more fully understand the present. 

The human form has appeared throughout the history of art as a means of telling stories, recording events, expressing beliefs, and exploring what it means to be human. As a genre, portraiture often goes beyond documentation to investigate intangible aspects of our lived experience such as mood, emotion, and character. The artists in this exhibition both embrace the long tradition of portraiture in the fine arts and critically question it by focusing on those who have been left out of conventional modes of representation.

Basing their compositions on friends, family members, and neighbors, and local communities, these four artists employ a wide range of media, from photography to watercolor to printmaking, to claim space for their subjects. Acknowledging the historical absence of Black bodies in Western art, their works invoke the interconnections between generations and highlight untold stories based on the artists’ personal experiences of living and working in Texas. 

This exhibition gives voice to a selection of contemporary artists based in Texas who expand the genre’s boundaries, foregrounding our contemporary experience. By highlighting domestic settings, private spheres, communal places, and the individuals who bring them to life, Figurative Histories makes a case for facing the past, acknowledging its impact on the present, and working toward a more equitable future.

Figurative Histories is curated by Alison Weaver, Executive director, and Frauke V. Josenhans, Curator, Moody Center for the Arts. 

This exhibition is made possible by the Moody Center for the Arts Founders Circle, the Moody Center for the Arts Excellence Fund, the H. Russell Pitman Fund for the Moody Center for the Arts, the Kilgore Endowment Fund, the Tamara de Kuffner Fund, and the Sewall Endowment.