From the Artist
The side panels fit together to form a diptych (two panels). The leopard in the right panel stands with a ceremonial seat fit for royalty on its back. An elephant stands in the left panel. In African mythology, animals are often given exaggerated human traits, some good and some not. One of the animals here is associated with courage and ferocity while the other one possesses dignity, wisdom, and patience.
—From Brandywine Workshop and Archives records
John T. Biggers researched some of Sub-Saharan Africa's visual traditions. Family Ark, 1992, is a grand story divided into three sections—a triptych—designed by Biggers to be shown all together, with the center panel (not shown here) on its own, or with the side panels paired together (see "From the Artist," below, for Biggers' discussion of the side panels as a diptych). Aspects of symmetry, geometry, and pattern can be found everywhere. One of the prints is made up of monochromatic sheets that are only printed in gray and green. Another uses additional earth colors to create six different presentations of the same print. Biggers' use of cross-cultural motifs such as the traditional washboard and three-legged iron pot, altar, and animals such as turtles, snakes, and elephants are symbolic and serves as a metaphor for life, death, and renewal in African and African American cultures.
—Adapted from Brandywine Workshop and Archives records and "Fresh, Human and Personal: Signature of Brandywine Workshop," Three Decades of American Printmaking: The Brandywine Workshop Collection (Manchester, VT: Hudson Hills Press, 2004)
Born in Gastonia, NC, printmaker and muralist John Biggers earned a BFA, MFA, and PhD from Pennsylvania State University, University Park.
In 1949, Biggers founded what is now the Department of Visual and Performing Arts at Texas South...