Charles Criner was an American artist, master printmaker, illustrator and educator whose six-decade career created an enduring visual record of Black life in East Texas. Born in Athens, Texas, one of nine children, Criner demonstrated an early gift for drawing and entered the Fine Arts program at Texas Southern University in 1964. There, he studied under the influential artist and educator Dr. John T. Biggers, whose emphasis on family, cultural history and lived experience profoundly shaped Criner’s artistic vision. Biggers also introduced him to stone lithography, the medium for which Criner became best known.
Drawing from childhood memories and close observation, Criner portrayed field workers, fishermen, churchgoers, mothers, children and elders with dignity and emotional depth. His lithographs, drawings and paintings transform scenes of labor, faith, recreation and family life into what he considered important windows into the Black past. Although rooted in personal experience, his images speak broadly to the resilience, traditions and cultural memory of African American communities.
Criner worked for nearly three decades as a staff artist for the Houston Post and later the Houston Chronicle. As the longtime artist-in-residence at Houston’s Museum of Printing History, he achieved recognition as a master printer, produced hand-pulled editions on an antique lithographic press and taught generations of artists through demonstrations and workshops. His career included a 55-year retrospective at The Printing Museum in 2019 and the 2022 exhibition Student/Teacher: Works by Charles Criner & Dr. John Biggers at the Tyler Museum of Art. His work is represented in collections including Texas Southern University, the Tyler Museum of Art, the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
Criner died on September 17, 2025, leaving a distinguished legacy as both a gifted image-maker and a visual historian who preserved the beauty, labor and humanity of everyday Black life.
