An innovative multidisciplinary artist, Hayward Oubre created dynamic, colorful found-material wire sculptures, sprawling geometric paintings, and figurative prints conjured from his experience as a Black Southerner, as well as his military service as a structural draftsman, and fascination with NASA and the Space Race. Beginning October 4, the Birmingham Museum of Art will host Hayward Oubre: Structural Integrity, the first major retrospective of his work. The New Orleans–born artist, who died in 2006, devoted just as much time to the classroom, sharing his genius with generations of students at Alabama State University and Winston-Salem State University. “He had a really clear vision of what he could contribute,” says Katelyn D. Crawford, the museum’s William Cary Hulsey Curator of American Art. At the show, a catalogue of reflections from the artist’s family and former students honors Oubre’s outsize legacy. “So much lives in communities, not in museums,” Crawford says. “This show is trying to tell a fuller story of art in Alabama.”
Southern Agenda