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 figuration 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.

About the Artists

Letitia Huckaby (b. 1972, Augsburg, Germany) uses photography as a tool to explore Black American heritage, cultural traditions, and faith.  Her research-based practice combines prints and fabrics, reexamining history and its contemporary connection to the black experience through portraiture. 

Huckaby has a degree in journalism from the University of Oklahoma, a BFA in photography from the Art Institute of Boston, and she holds an MFA from the University of North Texas in Denton. She has been included in various exhibitions notably at Art League Houston; Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth; Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, TX; the Tyler Museum of Art, Tyler, TX; Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR; the Studio School of Harlem; and the Texas Biennial at Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum, San Antonio. Her work is included in several collections, including the Library of Congress; the McNay Art Museum, San Antonio; the Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Beaumont; and the Samella Lewis Contemporary Art Collection at Scripps College, Claremont, CA. Huckaby was named the 2022 Texas Artist of the Year by Art League Houston. Huckaby is the co-founder of Kinfolk House, a collaborative project space in Fort Worth, Texas. She lives and works in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Earlie Hudnall, Jr. (b. 1946, Hattiesburg, MS) is a documentary photographer who captures people and communities as a means of amplifying marginalized voices and highlighting social inequities. Through a profoundly empathetic approach, Hudnall captures the vulnerability and resilience of his subjects, while inviting viewers to reflect on conditions of social injustice and racial discrimination. 

After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps, Hudnall received a BA in Art Education in 1976 from Texas Southern University. Three years later, he became a staff photographer for the university, where he worked in various roles until his retirement in 2019. Hudnall has received numerous awards, including the 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award in the Visual Arts by Art League Houston, and the 2020 Visual Artist Award by the Texas Commission on the Arts. His photographs have been featured in solo exhibitions, most recently at the Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Beaumont, TX (2023); and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA (2021). Hudnall’s work is represented in numerous permanent collections, including the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Menil Collection, Houston; Art Institute of Chicago, IL; National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; and Studio Museum in Harlem, NY. Hudnall lives and works in Houston’s Third Ward.

Delita Martin (b. 1972, Conroe, TX) is an artist and activist based in Huffman, Texas. A multidisciplinary creator who draws, sews, collages and paints on paper, Martin often depicts Black women whose stories have historically been omitted from Western art. Combining modern and traditional materials and imagery, Martin constructs images inspired by her personal history in order to generate new narratives and challenge societal norms. 

Martin received a BFA in drawing from Texas Southern University and an MFA in printmaking from Purdue University, and previously taught drawing at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. In 2020, she launched the Black Box Press Foundation, dedicated to supporting artists whose work inspires activism and social change. Martin’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is held in numerous private and public collections, including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Bradbury Art Museum, Arkansas; Gorman Museum, California; Crystal Bridges Museum, Arkansas; David Driskell Center, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota; Minnesota Museum of American Art; and National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, D.C., among others. Her work The Gathering, was commissioned for the Moody Center for the Art’s tent series in 2021 and is now part of the Rice Public Art collection. 

David McGee (b. 1962 Lockhart, Louisiana) alternates between figuration and abstraction in his intimate drawings and monumental watercolor that draw attention to the symbolic meaning of images and the inherent power of words. In his painted portraits, he examines questions of race and class by revisiting art historical figures, the Civil War, and conventional narratives that he reconsiders from a contemporary point of view. 

McGee moved to Texas to study at Prairie View A&M University from where he obtained a BFA in 1985. He has had solo exhibitions at numerous institutions, including the Menil Collection, Houston; Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston; Houston Museum of African American Culture; the Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Beaumont; the Gallery at UT Arlington, Texas; the Galveston Art Center; and others. His work is represented in various permanent collections, including the Grand Rapids Art Museum, MI; Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover, MA; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA; RISD Museum, Providence, RI; W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; Menil Collection; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Dallas Museum of Art. McGee lives and works in Houston.