January 25, 2017 The Skanner Page 7
Arts & Entertainment
Local Mural Artist Gets First Solo Show
tion of African Amer-
icans to northern and
western states and the
Vanport flood of 1948.
Frison’s panel, “Civil
Rights” — which includ-
ed thematic images of
Martin Luther King Jr.
and Ralph Abernathy
— was the first to be
completed in February
1978. The four addition-
al mural panels followed
later that summer.
His second contribu-
tion, “Black Cowboys,”
told stories of the timber
industry, cattle ranches
and dairy farms, as well
as the relationship be-
tween recently migrated
African Americans and
the indigenous people of
the Northwest.
No stranger to cow-
boys, Frison spent part
of his childhood living
By Melanie Sevcenko
Of The Skanner News
L
PHOTO: ROBIN J. DUNITZ
ocal African Amer-
ican painter Henry
Frison will exhibit
close to 20 portraits
at the end of the month,
in what will be the art-
ist’s first solo show.
Opening on July 29 at
greenHAUS Gallery and
Boutique, Frison’s inti-
mate portraits of iconic
Black figures — Presi-
dent Obama, Rosa Parks
and Michael Jackson
among them — will be on
display until the end of
summer.
“I want Henry to feel
the respect of the masses,
and not because he’s an
elderly Black man, but
because it should have
been provided 40 years
ago,” said Cole Reed, own-
“
Henry Frison on his back porch
at home on NE Fargo Ave.
er of greenHAUS.
At 77, Frison is primar-
ily known as a Portland
mural artist and one of
seven Black painters that
collaborated on the Al-
bina Mural Project from
1978 — a work of five 20
foot by 20 foot murals,
spearheaded by artist
Isaka Shamsud-Din.
At the corner of North
Vancouver Avenue and
Northeast Alberta Street,
the murals depicted a se-
ries of pivotal points in
Black history, including
the transatlantic slave
trade, the Great Migra-
Everybody
is really
unique in
their own
right, but
that’s why
I love por-
trait paint-
ing
on a ranch in his native
town of Bellinger, Texas.
Growing up, Frison
said he was always
sketching — mostly boy-
hood fascinations like
Mighty Mouse and other
cartoon characters. But
as he matured, he discov-
ered his gift for render-
ing images of people.
“Drawing people was
always a challenge to try
to capture each person,”
Frison told The Skan-
ner. “Everybody is real-
ly unique in their own
right, but that’s why I
love portrait painting.”
As a young man Frison
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Henry Frison’s portraits of Black legends will exhibit at greenHAUS Gallery July 29
Portrait of Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr.,
featured in Frison’s exhibit
moved to New Mexico,
where he lived for 10
years and worked at a
cotton compress.
In 1965, at the age of
25, he landed in Portland
and found work at a steel
foundry. After suffering
an illness that put him
out of work, Frison en-
rolled in the now-closed
Advertising Art School.
It was there that
he learned the art of
sign painting, which
would later inform his
large-format skills for
murals. He also graduat-
ed from sketching with
charcoal pencils to paint-
ing with oils.
Shortly after com-
pleting school, Frison
would join the socially
conscious Albina Mural
Project.
Robin Dunitz is a mu-
ral historian who used to
give mural tours through
the Mural Conservan-
cy of Los Angeles. “We
tried to educate people
how murals were a way
to present different cul-
tures and to show the ar-
tistic talents of a diversi-
ty of people in a city,” said
Dunitz, who now resides
in Portland.
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year marks the 50th an-
niversary of Chicago’s
1967 “Wall of Respect,”
and several mural pro-
grams across the nation
are acknowledging its
influence on community
mural movements. Com-
posed by 14 artists, “Wall
of Respect” is a montage
of portraits depicting
close to a dozen Black
heroes in various fields
such as music, sports and
politics.
“Black Cowboys” from the Albina Mural Project of 1978
“Artists of color have
historically been exclud-
ed from a lot of main-
stream galleries and
museums,”
continued
Dunitz. “So the streets
became their gallery.”
According to Frison,
he was never asked to
exhibit his work in Port-
land’s downtown galler-
ies. One of the reasons,
he said, was because his
prices were too low.
Dunitz and muralist
Joanne Oleksiak curated
the 2010 exhibit “Walls
of Heritage, Walls of
Pride: African American
Murals” for the Oregon
Historical Society, which
included work from the
Albina Mural Project.
The exhibit is also re-
flected in Dunitz’s book
of the same name, co-au-
thored by Jim Prigoff.
Some images featured
See ARTIST on page 8
