WATTS INDEXThe canonical database of visual culture

Artists›John Biggers

John Biggers

American, 1924

WA-00030830

PaintingStreet ArtFiguration

Representation

None documented

Institutional Exhibitions

Works in Collection

Assets Indexed

Authority-backed Facts

Publications Referenced

70%

Profile Completeness

Cultural Positioning

Influence Graph

No influence edges encoded yet.

Authority Records (2)

WikidataQ15516987

MoMA

Field Verification (3 fields)

3 cross-verified · 0 single-source

BiographyMoMA· 93%✓
Birth yearArtsy· 85%✓
NationalityArtsy· 85%✓

Source Registry (2)

MoMA bulk 2026-05-04https://www.moma.org/artists/7556
Tier 1 · Institutional92%
Artsy (bulk)https://www.artsy.net/artist/john-thomas-biggers
Tier 1 · Institutional85%

About

Why this artist matters now

John Biggers was an American painter and muralist whose large-scale works documented African American life and history with formal dignity and social conviction. Working primarily in tempera and fresco, he created monumental public commissions that centered Black communities, labor, and cultural resilience in the postwar period. His murals and easel paintings combined modernist composition with narrative specificity, refusing the abstraction that dominated his contemporaries in favor of figuration rooted in lived experience.

Source: Moma Bulk 2026 05 04 · Trust score: 92% · Updated 1mo ago

Graph relationships

Taste overlap and adjacency

Movement

Street Art

Medium

Painting

Related Artists

12 in graph

Institutional

Museum Collections

Museum of Modern ArtNew York

Canonical record

Artworks (5)

WattsOS

Our Grandmothers

1992 · Illustrated book with six lithographs

Overall: 22 1/4 x 17 1/2" (56.5 x 44.5 cm); page: 21 7/8 x 17 5/16" (55.5 x 44 cm)

Museum of Modern Art

WattsOS

The Four Seasons

1990 · lithograph printed in black and brown

Image: 57.2 x 78.8 cm (22 1/2 x 31 in.); Sheet: 63 x 86.8 cm (24 13/16 x 34 3/16 in.)

Cleveland Museum of Art

WattsOS

Black art in Houston : the Texas Southern University experience : presenting the art of Biggers, Simms and their students

1978

106 pages : illustrations (some color) ; Height: 11 7/16 in. (29 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

WattsOS

Victim

1965 · Lithograph

18 × 16 in. (45.7 × 40.6 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

WattsOS

Cotton Pickers

1952 · Lithograph

23 1/4 × 18 1/8 in. (59 × 46 cm)

The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Artwork sources (3)

5 published of 6 catalogued · 0 with image

The Met
3 published
MoMA
1 publishedof 2 catalogued
Cleveland Museum of Art
1 published

Per-Artwork Provenance Chains (top 1)

1 entries · 1 sources

The Four Seasons
1990 · Cleveland · 1 prov
Url Pattern Extraction 2026-05-27·accession_number

Record

Images

Artsy

Art Institute of Chicago

Relationships

Movements2

Street Art Figuration

Collections1

Museum of Modern Art

Institutional

Representation & Collections

In collection

Museum of Modern Art

New York, US

Record

Exhibitions and timeline

No exhibitions or timeline entries yet