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Floyd Newsum
Floyd Newsum Jr. (November 3, 1950 – August 14, 2024) was an American artist, educator and co-founder of Project Row Houses, a development merging art, cultural identity and community action in Houston, Texas' Third Ward. As an artist he was best known for his large, colorful, childlike paintings filled with personal iconography and West African motifs. Two of his pieces are in the collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. He is also noted for several large public sculptures in Houston and Ft. Worth, Texas. Early life and education The oldest of three siblings, Floyd Elbert Newsum Jr. was born in Memphis, Tennessee, to Floyd Elbert Newsum Sr. and Evelyn Forestine LaMondue Newsum. Newsum Sr. was the first black firefighter in the city. Both parents were involved in Memphis' Civil Rights Movement. As a teen, Newsum Jr. learned about the Memphis sanitation strike and assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. Like Floyd, Newsum's you ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Project Row Houses
Project Row Houses is a development in the Third Ward, Houston, Third Ward area of Houston, Texas. Project Row Houses includes a group of shotgun houses restored in the 1990s. Eight houses serve as studios for visiting artists. Those houses are art studios for art related to African-American themes. A row behind the art studio houses single mothers. History Rick Lowe, a native of Alabama and 2014 MacArthur Fellows Program, MacArthur "genius" grant winner, founded Project Row Houses in 1993 with James Bettison, Bert Long Jr., Jesse Lott, Floyd Newsum, Bert Samples, and George Smith. In 1990, according to Lowe, a group of high school students approached Lowe and asked him to create solutions to problems instead of creating works that tell the community about issues it is already aware of. Lowe and a coalition of artists purchased a group of 22 shotgun houses across two blocks that were built in 1930 and, by the 1990s, were in poor condition. Lisa Gray of the ''Houston Chronicle' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
