Charles Criner and Lionel Lofton are Texas artists who trained under John Biggers at Texas Southern University. Criner was introduced to lithography by Biggers and continued to master the technique, pulling his own prints on an antique press.
Criner’s work carries strong narrative content. His subjects grow from immediate experience and memory: boyhood recollections, fishing trips, rural life, spiritual imagery and Black people working in the fields.
The field scenes are among his most poignant works. Criner described such images as important windows into the past that should be cherished rather than forgotten.
