‘Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight’ Showcases Artist’s Greatest Hits and Half-Century Connection with Houston Patrons

Installation view of “Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight,” The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas (Jan. 24-July 13, 2025). | Courtesy The Menil Collection

IN HOUSTON, TEXAS, the Menil Collection is presenting some of the greatest hits of Joe Overstreet (1933–2019), whose work was influenced by jazz, African American history, and Abstract Expressionism. Nearly 30 works are on view from three significant bodies of work. The presentation highlights Overstreet’s enduring experimentation, pushing the boundaries of painting across form, dimension, scale, color, and texture. He explored shaped canvases, suspended paintings on un-stretched canvases, and engaged social politics and abstraction.

“Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight” represents a full-circle moment. Overstreet and John and Dominique de Menil, founders of the namesake museum, have a shared history that dates to the early years of the artist’s career. The art world was exclusionary, African American artists fought for visibility, and mainstream opportunities were rare.

Overstreet was featured in two group shows of Black artists initiated by the Menils. In February 1971, “Some American History” curated by Larry Rivers (1923-2002), a white artist, was on view at Rice University in Houston. Featuring contemporary abstract works by Black artists, The DeLuxe Show was curated by artist and gallery manager Peter Bradley, who is African American. The groundbreaking exhibition was staged at The DeLuxe Theater in Houston’s 5th Ward, a historically Black neighborhood.

“In [Overstreet’s] long and prolific career, three bodies of work stand out: the shaped canvas constructions from the 1960s; the unstretched paintings from the 1970s, known as Flight Patterns; and the monumental abstractions from the 1990s.” —Curator Natalie Dupêcher

Joe Overstreet with his Flight Patterns, 1972. | Courtesy of Menil Archives, The Menil Collection, Houston. Photo: Hickey-Robertson, Houston

Subsequently, the Menils supported a solo show of Overstreet at Rice in May 1972 and, months later, his work was installed at The DeLuxe Theater in August 1972.

More than 50 years later, “Taking Flight” at the Menil Collection is the first major museum exhibition of the artist in three decades. The exhibition was organized in collaboration with the artist’s estate. In the show’s catalog, exhibition curator Natalie Dupêcher, associate curator of modern art at the Menil Collection, wrote about the significance of the works presented in the show:

In the artist’s long and prolific career, three bodies of work stand out: the shaped canvas constructions from the 1960s; the unstretched paintings from the 1970s, known as Flight Patterns; and the monumental abstractions from the 1990s. Overstreet made work before, in between, and after these groups. This essay’s contention, however, is that they stand as his most significant contributions, foregrounding the way that he balanced form and content, infusing abstraction with political and personal weight. With these works, Overstreet formulated an abstract art that was formally adventurous, culturally engaged, and politically responsive, making a significant and novel contribution to twentieth-century art.

“With these works, Overstreet formulated an abstract art that was formally adventurous, culturally engaged, and politically responsive, making a significant and novel contribution to twentieth-century art.”
— Curator Natalie Dupêcher

Installation view of JOE OVERSTREET, “Justice, Faith, Hope, and Peace,” 1968 (acrylic on shaped canvas, 90 × 193 × 2 3/4 inches / 228.6 × 490.2 × 7 cm) | © Estate of Joe Overstreet/Artist Rights Society (ARS), Courtesy of Eric Firestone Gallery, New York

Born in Conehatta, Miss., Overstreet’s family was part of the Great Migration in the early 1940s, eventually settling in Berkeley, Calif. Overstreet came of age during the Civil Rights Movement when African American artists were expected to address the politics of race, rights, and justice in their work. He worked part-time for the Merchant Marines while attending art school and began his artistic practice in the San Francisco Bay Area. He took a studio space near Sargent Claude Johnson (1888-1967) and was active in The Beat scene. Thereafter, Overstreet spent his career in New York, where he co-founded Kenkeleba House, with his partner Corrine Jennings. The nonprofit gallery presents exhibitions by artists of color and women.

Over the years, the Menils acquired works by Overstreet. The Menil Collection includes five works produced in the early 1970s. “Free Direction” (1971) and “Man and Woman Came from a Reed” (1971), a pair of purple and plum works from Overstreet’s Flight Patterns series, are on view in “Taking Flight.” Produced on un-stretched canvases, the three-dimensional, tent-like works are architectural and evince birds in flight. When he created the works, Overstreet said his goal was to animate painting. “They actually move, they’re organic, they become alive,” the artist said. CT

“Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight” is on view at the Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, from Jan. 24-July 13, 2025. The exhibition travels next to

FIND MORE about Joe Overstreet in his New York Times obituary

FIND MORE about The DeLuxe Show on Culture Type

Installation view of “Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight,” The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas (Jan. 24-July 13, 2025). Shown, from left, “Man and Woman Came from a Reed,” 1971 (acrylic on canvas with metal grommets and cotton rope, 122 7/8 × 59 inches / 312.1 × 149.9 cm) (irregular), The Menil Collection, Houston; “Free Direction,” 1971 (acrylic on canvas with metal grommets and cotton rope, 152 1/2 × 89 inches / 387.4 × 226.1 cm) (canvas laid flat), The Menil Collection, Houston | Courtesy The Menil Collection, Houston

Offering a guided tour of “Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight” at The Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, this video explains the experimental nature of the artist’s paintings and highlights some of the content and meaning embedded in the works, including references to Martin Luther King Jr., and the House of Slaves Memorial on Gorée Island in Senegal. | Video by The Menil Collection

Installation view of “Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight,” The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas (Jan. 24-July 13, 2025). | Courtesy The Menil Collection

Installation view of “Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight,” The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas (Jan. 24-July 13, 2025). Shown, foreground, from left, “North Star,” 1968 (acrylic on shaped canvas, 93 1/2 × 85 5/8 × 3 inches / 237.5 × 217.5 × 7.6 cm); “Tribal Chieftain,” 1969 (acrylic on shaped canvas, 85 1/8 × 84 × 2 7/8 inches / 216.2 × 213.4 × 7.3 cm). | Courtesy The Menil Collection, Houston

Installation view of “Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight,” The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas (Jan. 24-July 13, 2025). Shown, from left, “Baobab and Fish,” 1993 (oil and beeswax on canvas, 120 × 144 inches / 304.8 × 365.8 cm); “Kermel,” 1993 (oil and beeswax on canvas, 120 × 144 inches / 304.8 × 365.8 cm); “Exit Dust,” 1993 (oil and beeswax on canvas, 120 × 144 inches / 304.8 × 365.8 cm), © Estate of Joe Overstreet/Arst Rights Society (ARS), Courtesy of Eric Firestone Gallery, New York (3). | Courtesy The Menil Collection, Houston

Installation view of “Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight,” The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas (Jan. 24-July 13, 2025). Shown, foreground, from left, “HooDoo Mandala,” 1970 (acrylic on canvas with metal grommets and cotton rope, 90 × 89 1/2 inches / 228.6 × 227.3 cm); “Mandala,” 1970 (acrylic on canvas with metal grommets and cotton rope, 93 × 89 inches / 236.2 × 226.1 cm). | Courtesy The Menil Collection, Houston

Installation view of “Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight,” The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas (Jan. 24-July 13, 2025). | Courtesy The Menil Collection, Houston

Installation view of “Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight,” The Menil Collection, Houston, Texas (Jan. 24-July 13, 2025). Shown at left, “Great Mother of All,” 1970 (acrylic on canvas with metal grommets and cotton rope, 115 × 195 × 65 inches / 292.1 × 495.3 × 165.1 cm), Dimensions variable. | Courtesy The Menil Collection, Houston

BOOKSHELF
Forthcoming in July, “Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight” documents the exhibition. Authored by exhibition curator Natalie Dupêcher, the volume includes contributions by Darby English, Ishmael Reed, and The Menil Collection Director Rebecca Rabinow, among others. “1971: A Year in the Life of Color” by Darby English “looks at many black artists’ desire to gain freedom from overt racial representation, as well as their efforts—and those of their advocates—to further that aim through public exhibition.” Two shows presented in 1971 central to his scholarship: “Contemporary Black Artists in America” at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and The DeLuxe Show at The DeLuxe Theater in Houston, Texas.