As slaves sneaking out of sight to praise the Lord, Rick Hyman's ancestors would fit hollowed-out tree logs over their heads so their spirited exclamations would go unheard by their masters on the plantation.
Such a scene, reflected in Hyman's painting "Massa Can't Hear Us Praising the Good Lord," is based on oral history passed down among his relatives, then collected by Hyman, who took interest in his family's heritage after finding hundreds of photographs that chronicled his relatives' lives after they had moved from slavery in Virginia to prosperity in rural Texas.
"I'm still tape-recording as of last week," said Hyman while sitting with his wife Ronda in his Las Vegas living room, surrounded by colorful paintings and black and white photographs.
On a footstool sits a collection of photographs carefully placed in protective plastic.
Gleaming from the pictures are the fresh faces of black teenagers as they stood beside a family car on a summer day, and men and women in their finest clothes posing for the camera. Names such as Lullaby, Ida and Gussie Lee are scribbled on the back.
This is Hyman's family. This is their story. It's a story being studied by high school students throughout the country and pondered by clusters of museum-goers who turn out to see Hyman's acrylic paintings featured in "The Riches of Family: An American Journey from Slavery to Prosperity," a traveling exhibit hosted by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
The exhibit will open Friday at the Reed Whipple Cultural Center and feature paintings inspired by the photographs and from oral history passed down among Hyman's relatives.
His interest in his family history began in 1981 when Hyman, who was living in Maryland at the time, went to Texas to visit an ailing aunt.
His aunt had passed away two days after he arrived. While sorting through her belongings Hyman discovered money hidden behind pictures and in mattresses, as well as jewelry dating back to the 1800s and several hundred photographs of his relatives that were taken between 1912 and 1927.
"I knew they were valuable," Hyman said, referring to the photographs. "I knew I really had something."
What made the pictures stand out, he said, was that they told the story of a black family that had lived affluently in rural Texas at a time when other blacks were being lynched just 30 miles away. The educated family had moved in one generation from slavery in Virginia to prosperity on oil-rich land in Texas.
"During this time period you'd hardly see African-Americans out West showing wealth on land -- their own land -- and wearing jewelry," Hyman said.
Hyman's great-great grandfather, Cezar Martin, was a slave on a Virginia plantation. After being freed in 1863 he traveled by night with his wife, Margaret, and other freed slaves in four covered wagons to work for his former master's relative in Texas.
Cezar's son, Henderson Martin, was born in 1866 in Texas and eventually worked for a white cattle rancher named Martin Liggons.
At age 25 Henderson purchased 70 acres of land and became a cattle rancher. When Liggons died he bequeathed to Henderson 2,000 acres of oil-rich property.
The family not only owned property, but four automobiles and expensive jewelry. Until he stumbled across the photographs, Hyman knew none of this.
"They were very secretive people," Hyman said, attempting to explain the mystery. "They had to be secretive just to survive. Otherwise, in that area they'd lose what they had."
In all, there were 300 photographs taken from 1912-1927, and another 150 taken in the 1940s of his relatives during their college years, lounging around in swimsuits.
"So, you have to ask yourself," Hyman said, "what does one do with these photos? What do you do when you have a responsibility? Do you turn it all over to a museum and walk away?"
The self-taught artist took the advice of an uncle who had told him, "If you paint these people sitting alongside their automobiles wearing these hats, you'd have something."
Hyman is working on his 36th painting of his family. "My Texas Family" (Tempus Publishing, 2000), a book that was co-written by Hyman and his wife features some of the the paintings, photographs and stories about his family.
One of his paintings hung for four years in the living room set of NBC's "The Cosby Show," and his family's story has been incorporated into high school curriculum in select classes throughout the country. Rick and Ronda Hyman regularly appear as guest speakers at schools to talk about their experience.
Learning from the past
Hyman said that he is still tape-recording stories from interviews with relatives. The stories will become part of another book that is in the works.
In his recent painting, "The Virginia Plantation Before We Were Free," Hyman portrays the house and field slaves as they might have appeared just prior to leaving for Texas.
Women are seen stitching canvas tops and dying them a darker color in a black kettle so they could be undetected as they traveled at night by covered wagon.
A field slave brushing the master's horse as the master sits atop it, and a house slave standing next to the white mistress just outside the brick plantation house -- the fields where they toiled and sweat all of their lives -- can be seen in the background.
"I tried to tell what everybody would feel in this picture knowing they were leaving," he said. "One of the relatives saw a vision in the sky and that was a sign that eventually they were going to be free. I plan to paint that also."
Other stories tell of their day-to-day lives.
"Some of my family were house Negroes and they were educated and taught the master's children," he said. "Some of my family were also field Negroes on the Roberson plantation (in Virginia) ... When the house Negroes would come to the slave quarters that the field Negroes lived in, the field Negroes were jealous and they would put stick pins in the chairs ... and they would pull their hair because some of them would have longer hair."
A painter since childhood, Hyman painted landscapes and musicians before coming across the treasures at his aunt's home.
He never attended art school, but read about art and art history. Growing up in Washington, D.C., his school classes would travel to the National Gallery of Art to see the artwork of Picasso, Rodin and Matisse. As a child, Hyman was known by teachers for his talent in drawing and painting.
"To paint your family or someone that you love or never knew but as family is very spiritual," Hyman said. "My ancestors are with me as I'm painting.
"It really tells me who I am, what I am made of," Hyman said, referring to his family's stories. "We are all made of something great and we all come from a wonderful family whether (we) know them or not."
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