African-American Art

African-American Art: Highlights from the Dr. Hervy Hiner Collection
Art Museum of Southeast Texas (AMSET)
Jan. 23 – April 11 2010

Visitors to AMSET will get the exclusive opportunity to view the extraordinary and diverse African-American art from the private collection of local nephrologist and entrepreneur, Dr. Hervy Hiner. This exhibition continues Southeast Texas Collects, a series of exhibitions organized over the last 20 years that spotlight significant artwork from private collections in Southeast Texas.
African-American Art: Highlights from the Dr. Hervy Hiner Collection will feature 30 works in a variety of mediums by some of the most distinguished and influential African-American artists of the 19th through 21st centuries. Among the artists whose works were instrumental in shaping African-American art history and will be featured are: Charles Alston, Benny Andrews, Romare Bearden, John Biggers, Elizabeth Catlett, Robert Duncanson, Jacob Lawrence, Norman Lewis, Dean Mitchell, Hughie Lee-Smith, and Henry Ossawa Tanner.
Dr. Hiner, an East Texas native, relocated to Port Arthur from Houston in the late 1980s and during this time began amassing the exquisite works that grace the walls of his home and popular local restaurant, Suga’s Deep South Cuisine and Jazz Bar. His collection is vastly rich with highlights of the development of African-American art beginning with Joshua Johnson, one of the earliest known African-American portrait painters in the late 18th century, and progressing to popular contemporary artists thriving in the art market today.
“Organizing an exhibition of Dr. Hiner’s collection has been a highly rewarding experience not only for the generosity of this patron in loaning artwork to the museum but in sharing his passion with the community,” said AMSET Curator of Exhibitions and Collections Sarah Hamilton. “Southeast Texans don’t want to pass up the rare opportunity to view this incredible collection.”
AMSET’s Southeast Texas Collects series demonstrates the museum’s recognition of the many benefits associated with featuring exhibitions of artwork from local private collections. Not only do museum visitors get an opportunity to experience important artwork rarely exposed in a public venue, but, in addition, the museum is able to cultivate strong relationships with collectors and thus promote collecting and donating.
This exhibition is funded in part by the Beaumont Foundation of America, Helen Caldwell Locke and Curtis Blakey Locke Charitable Foundation, C. Homer and Edith Fuller Chambers Charitable Foundation, Dorothy Anne Conn, Texas Commission on the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts and the City of Beaumont.

Art Museum of Southeast Texas (AMSET)