‘Arkansas Master’ Celebrates UAPB Art Department Founder John Howard

John Howard, Still Life with Fruit, oil on masonite, 47” by 40.5.” ASC Permanent Collection 80.026.000

Selection of Paintings from ASC, University Collections Opens with June 9 Reception

John Miller Howard is shown in this undated photo.

The next exhibition at the Arts & Science Center celebrates the work of pioneering university arts leader and artist John Miller Howard.

In collaboration with the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff (UAPB), ASC will present An Arkansas Master: The Work of John Howard. The exhibition opens Thursday, June 9, 2022, with a drop-in reception from 5-7 p.m. 

An Arkansas Master features 14 paintings from UAPB’s John Howard Legacy Collection and two from ASC’s permanent collection. The works depict landscapes, houses, still lifes and abstract images. 

A pioneering African American arts educator, Howard founded the art department at what is now UAPB. Howard worked for more than four decades to provide a top-quality arts education to his students, many of whom came from rural backgrounds and lacked exposure to art. 

Howard experimented in a variety of media and techniques, and An Arkansas Master celebrates the uniqueness of his body of work, explained ASC Curator Jessica Lenehan.

“John Howard’s legacy is alive and well in the state of Arkansas, especially in Pine Bluff,” Lenehan said. “Those Howard mentored have gone on to have enormous impacts in the arts community throughout the state, spreading Howard’s passion for the arts and his vision of the arts as an inclusive community. Howard’s dedication to his students, to his university, and to the arts was unmatched and unwavering.”

Nationally known artists who graduated from Howard’s program include Jeff Donaldson and Kevin Cole. 

Lenehan continued, “Today’s students benefit from Howard’s tireless advocating for his department and university and his insistence upon the importance of arts education. His legacy lives on in those who follow in his footsteps, railing against racial and economic barriers to provide access to the arts and make a life filled with meaning.”

Howard’s contributions to UAPB also include his significant role in designing the Isaac Hathaway Fine Art Center and securing funding for the construction of the building, said Dr. Karen DeJarnette, associate professor and interim chair of UAPB’s department of art and design.

Howard convinced the Arkansas Higher Education Commission to fully fund the $1.4 million fine arts center, according to the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas. In 1969, the building opened to house the music, theater and art departments. Howard insisted upon naming the building after Isaac Hathaway, a former arts faculty member. Today, this building is named the Isaac S. Hathaway-John M. Howard Fine Arts Center in honor of both men.

“His legacy as a painter, professor, and administrator continues to inspire UAPB’s faculty and students,” DeJarnette said.

John Howard, Old House Series #2, 0il on canvas, 55.5” by 43.5”. University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff’s John Howard Legacy Collection

‘I Kept On Painting’

John Miller Howard was born on September 22, 1908, near Alcorn, Mississippi — only a few miles from the Mississippi River. At the age of 3, Howard, his older brother, and his mother moved to Brookhaven, Mississippi, where his mother made a meager living by cooking and cleaning for white families. Howard spent his childhood copying cartoons, drawing and painting, and dreaming of one day becoming an artist. While his mother recognized his talent and encouraged this interest, Howard’s affinity for art was not nurtured in the segregated schools. It would be decades before he was afforded the opportunity to develop himself as an artist.

After high school, John Howard attended nearby Alcorn College (now Alcorn State University). According to Howard, “Alcorn had no art, but I kept on painting. I did the walls in my dormitory, cartoons for the newspaper and drawings for biology students.” His dedication eventually paid off, and in 1935, Howard accepted a teaching job at T.J. Harris High School in Meridian, Mississippi. There, Howard impressed the state education director with his skill and competency, and the director provided Howard with a scholarship for summer study at Atlanta University.

In Atlanta, Howard studied under the well-known muralist and painter Hale Woodruff. As a fellow African-American man, Woodruff’s success in navigating the industry and the ease with which he explored his practice encouraged Howard to do the same. Woodruff recognized Howard’s talent and invited him back to Atlanta in 1937, after his initial summer study, with a scholarship and a job teaching at Atlanta University’s laboratory school. Through this program, Howard found community among other talented young artists mentored by Woodruff. Though he developed a practice uniquely his own, Woodruff’s influence on Howard is most evident in the latter’s Old House series and his expressive abstractions.

In 1939, President John Brown Watson of the Agricultural, Mechanical and Normal College (AM&N) — now the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff — recruited Howard to serve as the college’s first art instructor. 

John Howard, Untitled Abstraction 3, oil on wood panel, 45” x 45”. University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff’s John Howard Legacy Collection

What began as a small department with only four students, relegated to the second floor of the library building, flourished under Howard’s exhaustive efforts. In 1950, AM&N officially began offering art as a major. However, it was not until much later that the art department officially gained its own building, thanks to Howard’s persistent efforts advocating for the need for space and the importance of the department as a whole.

Howard married Julia Palmer, a librarian at AM&N, in 1941. They had two daughters, Roselily and Marinelle. Julia died on June 3, 1971. 

That same year, at the age of 63, Howard suffered a stroke. He was unable to return to AM&N until 1974. He continued to work until his death on October 10, 1980, at the age of 72.

Longtime friend June Biber Freeman — who founded ASC’s predecessor organization, Little Firehouse Community Arts Center —curated a retrospective of Howard’s work in 1981 at ASC.

RESTORATION

Fast forwarding to the 21st century, several of Howard’s pieces needed attention before they could be put on display.

“John Howard mixed media in an experimental way that it turns out was not always archival,” Lenehan explained. “Decades later, the way he layered mediums caused them to crack and lift off the surface of his paintings.”

The Windgate Foundation awarded a $125,000 grant for the cleaning and framing of 10 of his works — four paintings and six watercolor pieces. The grant also covered the cost of digitizing the works and other artifacts related to Howard, research, and a grant coordinator. The restoration work was completed in 2019.

An Arkansas Master: The Work of John Howard will be on display in the Ben J. Altheimer Gallery in ASC’s main building, 701 S. Main St. in Pine Bluff, through Dec. 3, 2022. Gallery admission is always free. 

The exhibition is sponsored by the University of Arkansas Pine Bluff and the Arts & Science Center Endowment Fund, and the reception is sponsored by ASC volunteer group Art Krewe and M.K. Distributors.

For more information about the exhibition, contact Lenehan at jlenehan@asc701.org or call 870-536-3375.

Additional source: Central Arkansas Library System’s Encyclopedia of Arkansas

John Miller Howard is shown in this undated photo.