12 Facts About Houston Conwill

Houston Eugene Conwill was an American multidisciplinary artist known best for large-scale public sculptural installations.

Houston Eugene Conwill was born on April 2,1947, in Louisville, Kentucky, to Mary Luella Herndon, an educator, and Giles Adolph Conwill, a waiter.

Houston Conwill's father died when he was a child and his maternal grandmother played an important role in his upbringing.

Houston Conwill was raised Catholic, his mother a teacher and administrator at a predominantly black parochial school.

Houston Conwill's sister Estella Conwill Majozo is an author, poet, and professor.

At least one of his brothers, Giles Houston Conwill, went on to join the priesthood.

Houston Conwill was graduated from Howard in 1973 and moved with his wife, fellow Howard art school graduate Kinshasha Holman Houston Conwill, to California.

Houston Conwill pursued his master's degree from University of Southern California and Kinshasha worked at curator of Frank Lloyd Wright's Hollyhock House, where they lived for two years.

Houston Conwill married Karen Holman in a Ghanaian ceremony at Metropolitan Baptist Church in Washington DC in 1971.

In 1989, Houston Conwill produced an installation piece for the Museum of Modern Art's series, Projects, called The Cakewalk Humanifesto: A Cultural Libation.

Houston Conwill again collaborated with his sister, Estella, as well as architect Joseph De Pace.

Houston Conwill's work is in the permanent collections of Museum of Modern Art in New York; the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and the Studio Museum in Harlem.