Fort Worth artist’s portrait of Opal Lee is headed to National Portrait Gallery

A portrait of one legendary Fort Worth resident by another legendary resident is headed to the National Portrait Gallery in Washington.

Artist Sedrick Huckaby debuted his portrait of Opal Lee, who was in attendance, on Saturday morning at the Talley Dunn Gallery in Dallas.

The oil painting portrays Fort Worth’s “Grandmother of Juneteenth” sitting at her dining table, holding an open book, wearing a floral blouse, looking to her right. The only indication someone else is there — in this case, Huckaby — is a half full coffee cup.

Juneteenth recognizes when Texas slaves learned of their freedom after the Emancipation Proclamation. Lee earned a Nobel Peace Prize nomination after years of advocating to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. Her efforts included a walk from Fort Worth to the nation’s capital. Lee got her wish in 2022 when President Joe Biden signed a law making Juneteenth a federal holiday.

Another portrait of Lee hangs in the state Capitol.

Huckaby works in painting, sculpture, and drawing, reflecting on large themes, such as family, faith, heritage, and community. Fort Worth has long been central to his work. In 2020, he told D Magazine, “I was making art about Fort Worth, but always in other places.”

Getting to know his subjects is important to his process, as is doing justice for them. The assignment to paint Lee, now a Fort Worth icon, was irresistible.

Coincidentally he met Lee when he was a child entering art competitions.

“She was always teaching about Juneteenth. She was always teaching about our heritage and and taking pride in who you are,” he recalled.

They became closer as he began visiting her for the portrait.

“I visited her on several occasions and did small studies: some pastel, some drawing, some small paintings. And I’d take that back to the studio to create this large piece. The piece is special to me because I know her,” Huckaby said.

Lee, who sat in front of the painting with Huckaby before a large crowd, didn’t have much to say about the painting or the National Gallery. She had a lot to say about injustice.

“There’s so much homelessness and joblessness and the health care that some people can’t afford and climate change that we are responsible for,” she said.

Lee and her granddaughter Dione Sims, who was also in attendance, discussed their massive plans for a National Juneteenth Museum in the Historic Southside, one of the few remaining historically Black neighborhoods in the city. The museum, theater, business incubator and affordable housing project is beging designed by the renowned global architecture firm Bjarke Ingels Group, or BIG.

“it’s really going to convert and revitalize the Historic Southside,” Sims said.

It replaces Lee’s former Juneteenth Museum, a set of three buildings that recently burned down.

In 2020, the Huckabys opened a community center in a bungalow once owned by Sedrick’s grandmother. Kinfolk House is a gallery, performance hall, and educational center for the Polytechnic Heights neighborhood, a historically Black and Latino community. It’s not a $70 million project designed by a star architect. But Sedrick sees similarities between the Juneteenth Museum and Kinfolk House.

“I see it two ways. They reside and benefit their communities. But also Juneteenth is about freedom. What do we do with freedom? Our response to that question is we make art in the community,” he said.