In conjunction with Black History Month, portraits of some of the country’s black leaders are currently on display in the Technical Reference Center in the College of Architecture.
The Technical Reference Center, located in the College of Architecture in Langford, now displays artwork of the retired professor Robert Schiffhauer which focuses on significant historical figures. Schiffhauer and Susan Gordone, the wife of one of the painting’s subjects Charles Gordone, reached out to Texas A&M representatives over the course of the past couple years to try and find a home on campus for the pieces of art. After not hearing back for some time, Gordone propositioned the College of Architecture to house the collection.
“We wanted to celebrate his contribution to the college because he was important to the college, especially because his work helped us remember the legacy from unrepresented minorities from the college and Texas in general,” said Cecilia Giusti, the associate dean for Outreach and Diversity for the College of Architecture.
Schiffhauer, an A&M professor of architecture for 40 years, chose to create these portraits to bring these people back to life so they may be studied and shared, Giusti said.
“We thought it was very relevant to honor [Schiffhauer’s art], especially since we started the semester remembering MLK, so the offering reception was the same day that the university celebrated MLK here on campus,” Giusti said.
Gordone is the project director and archivist for the Torch Bearers project, which looks into archives that are unreachable through digital media and aims to uncover stories that have been lost throughout history.
“I am wanting to make sure that the lives of these people are studied. You know, this portrait collection [is] about paying homage to those in our past for overcoming the dark nights of history and of yesterday and guiding through them into the dark nights of today and tomorrow,” Gordone said. “We talk about them as the ‘torch bearers’ because what they contributed to the world is still part of how we advanced.”
Nineteen of Schiffhauer’s 50 portraits will be temporarily on display in the College of Architecture. Ian Muise, Class of 1992 and visual resource curator at the Technical Reference Center, met with Schiffhauer to decide which portraits to display.
“The people that we have profiled here are statesmen — they’re involved with the arts through music or theater or something like that,” Muise said. “So they’re a good cross-section of civil rights figures — Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr. are both represented.”
 Gordone said the paintings being displayed are important to her because she wants her late husband to have a place on campus.
“I wanted to leave something on campus to relay his legacy. He had not only won the Drama Pulitzer, he had broken down so many barriers in Hollywood and New York,” Gordone said. “He was a national figure. I was trying to find a way to leave his memory on campus.”