Image: Installation view of an Ellsworth Ausby exhibition in the galleries of the Houston Museum of African American Culture, Houston. Courtesy of the Houston Museum of African American Culture
"Bayou City Stewards: America From Our Perspective" is on view at the Houston Museum of African American Culture (HMAAC) through 29 August 2026, having opened on 19 June (hmaac.org). The museum presents the show as a gathering of works kept by teachers, community leaders, entrepreneurs, musicians, families and everyday Houstonians - collectors it calls stewards of culture - whose holdings are assembled into a portrait of America seen from a Black perspective as the country marks 250 years.
HMAAC credits the exhibition to curators Robert Hodge and Rachel Simon, with India Lovejoy as producer. The press text circulated by Glasstire describes it as produced by India Lovejoy and Rachel Simon alongside the interdisciplinary artist Robert Hodge, and as the latest project from the team behind Houston’s Collect It For The Culture series. Admission is always free, with donations accepted, and the museum is open Wednesday to Saturday, 11am to 6pm (hmaac.org).
The exhibition came to notice through Glasstire’s weekly "Top Five" dispatch of 13 August 2026, which placed the HMAAC show first and illustrated it with Robert Freeman’s "Black Tie - The Social Season," 1990, from the collection of Gaynell Drexler. With the run ending on 29 August, the show is in its final days.
The same roundup listed four other Texas exhibitions, each with a named venue and dates: the 2026 Texas Juried Exhibition at Artspace111 in Fort Worth (25 July - 29 August), organised with the Love Texas Art Foundation and juried by Patron magazine publisher and editor Terri Provencal, showing 40 artists selected from more than 2,400 submissions by 725 Texas artists; Rinus Van de Velde’s "The Dinner" at Hetzler Marfa (24 May - 6 December), billed as the Belgian artist’s most comprehensive US overview to date, with oil pastels, charcoals, sculpture and two films; Raul Rene Gonzalez’s "Perspectives" at the Louise Hopkins Underwood Center for the Arts in Lubbock (3 July - 29 August), pairing parenthood and construction labour across three bodies of work made between 2016 and 2026; and Larry Graeber’s "Silent Drift" at the San Antonio Central Library Gallery (1 August - 12 September). Three of the five, including the HMAAC exhibition, close on 29 August.
