Black Leaders: Texans for Their Times Page: 206
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Black Leaders
The still film can be a powerful medium with great impact."
In the meantime Hazel had completed her training at Hampton
and was working as an accountant at Florida A&M College in
Tallahassee. In December, 1948, in the middle ofJohn's last year of
residency at Penn State, she came to Pennsylvania and they were mar-
ried. She returned immediately to her job in Florida so John could
finish out his year (It was not until 1954 that he returned to receive
his doctorate).
John went to Florida in June, 1949, to collect his bride. Their
first real honeymoon was spent that summer in Montgomery, where
John taught at Alabama State Teachers College. In August they went
to Houston, where John had accepted the challenge of organizing a
department of art at Texas Southern University for Negroes.
Hazel is a lovely, serene woman of unusual intelligence and sen-
sitivity. "She has made my world secure," John said. Her belief in his
art is so strong that she has always been willing for him to cut loose
from everything else and take his chances as an artist. Several times he
has been tempted, but his work at Texas Southern was far too
challenging and rewarding for him to let go of it, a fact which has
enriched the lives of a whole generation of young black artists in
Texas.
Formidable obstacles confronted John Biggers at Texas
Southern. There was little understanding among the administration
and the faculty as to what an art department should be. Many
thought of it principally as a free source of posters, graphs, and
showcard letterings. They also wanted their portraits painted and
could not understand how a man who could obviously paint and draw
such fine heads was not interested. To this day he accepts no such
commissions.
The only other member of the TSU art department that first year
was Joseph Mack, a classmate of Biggers at Hampton Institute. The
next year there was added to the faculty the man who, next to Biggers
himself, has been most responsible for the growth and influence of
the department-Carroll Simms, native of Arkansas, a graduate of
Cranbrook Art Academy in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. At Cran-
brook, Simms studied under Bill McVey, later of Rice University, and
Berthold ("Tex") Schiwetz, an unusually talented understudy of
Walter Millis and a brother of the beloved Texas artist E. M.206
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Barr, Alwyn & Calvert, Robert A. Black Leaders: Texans for Their Times, book, 2007; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth296839/m1/217/?q=1966+yearbook+north+texas+state+university: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.