John Thomas Biggers

John Thomas Biggers’s intricate paintings of everyday life double as vibrant visual critiques of social injustice. Similar to Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden, who explored the African American condition in paintings and collages that fused folk art aesthetics with a modernist approach, Biggers offers scenes of workday activities that allude to physical and metaphysical struggle. “I began to see art not primarily as an individual expression of talent, but as a responsibility to reflect the spirit and style of the Negro people,” Biggers once said. “It became an awesome responsibility to me.”