John Biggers, Starry Crown, acrylic on canvas, 1987. 591/2 x 47 1/2 inches. Dallas Museum of Art Purchase, The Museum League Fund.
Black Art — Acestral Legacy is a photo-and-text panel exhibit based a major ground-breaking exhibition of art works organized by the Dallas Museum of Art. A photo-panel version of the exhibition was organized by the Texas Humanities Resource Center, with support from the Philip Morris Companies and the Texas Council for the Humanities. Support for this electronic version of the panel show is provided by a grant from the Brown Foundation, Inc., Houston.
"The three Marys of the African-American community represent the three cultures of African antiquity: Egypt, Benin, and the Dogon of Mali. The woman in the center, the Dogon weaver of the 'word,' sits with a string running through her teeth, symbolizing the transferral of knowledge across generations and continents through the spoken word in folk tales, proverbs and divine teachings."
— Alvia Wardlaw, Black Art Ancestral Legacy: The African Impulse in African-American Art (exhibition catalog), Dallas Museum of Art, 1989, p. 192.
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