Calvin Hubbard’s "Figure with Bird and Turtle"

1966

"Figure with Bird and Turtle" was the first sculpture to be displayed in the TSU art department’s gallery.

Students like Robert Pruitt have created sculptures using terra cotta, a clay-based ceramic, since the founding of TSU’s art program. Ceramics professor Carroll Harris Simms taught TSU art students to embrace their own culture and other Afro-diasporic styles mythologies, and traditions.

In his two-part terra cotta sculpture, TSU alum Calvin Hubbard depicts a mother and baby bird. Upon closer examination, the mother is a turtle, the baby is a dove, and the two form a harmonious “turtle dove.” This motif is similar to those seen in Yoruba sculpture in present-day Nigeria.