Portrait Project
The Portrait Project tells TCU’s story through diverse portraiture around the campus that commemorates historically marginalized and underrepresented members of the Horned Frog community.
Since the project’s inception in 2019, a committee of faculty, staff and students have selected the portraits’ honorees and artists to highlight the inspiring untold stories of TCU.
Current Portraiture
Charley and Kate ThorpA pair of portraits depicts Charley and Kate Thorp, a formerly enslaved couple who were instrumental figures at AddRan Male and Female College in the 1800s; the college eventually became Texas Christian University.
Because there are no photographs of Charley and Kate Thorp, the artist photographed their living descendants to create the silhouette portraits, offering a creative interpretation of the Thorps’ legacy. The portraits will be unveiled in October 2024.
Location: The Harrison First Floor Lobby
About the Artist
Letitia Huckaby, the 2022 Texas Artist of the Year, has exhibited her work nationally
and internationally. Her art is included in several prestigious collections, including
the Library of Congress and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.
Huckaby is the co-founder of Kinfolk House, a collaborative project space that inhabits
a 100-year-old historic home, where community and art converge in the predominantly
Black and Latina/e/o Fort Worth neighborhood, Polytechnic.
Previous Portraiture
Among the Firsts“Among the Firsts” is a series of three portraits of the university’s first Black graduates, Doris Ann McBride, Allene Parks Jones and Patsy Brown. The portraits were installed as part of the 2020 opening of The Harrison, the university’s main administrative building.
Diverse Portraiture Around Campus
Allene Parks Jones ’63 was one of TCU’s first Black graduates and the first Black faculty member, who taught in the Harris College of Nursing & Health Sciences from 1968 until her retirement in 1988.
Location: Annie Richardson Bass Building
Jennifer Giddings Brooks ’71 (MS ’74) was TCU’s first Black homecoming queen, elected by the student body in 1970.
Location: Dee J. Kelly Alumni & Visitors Center
“Based on Quanah Parker” and “Based on Mrs. Jack Treetop-Standing Rock 1908,” two works by the contemporary Comanche/Kiowa artist J. NiCole Hatfield (Nahmi-A-Piah), represent TCU’s relationship with Native American and Indigenous peoples.
Location: The Harrison First Floor Conference Room
