Br own Renfro is a deeply personal and historical exploration of lineage, learning, and legacy. This exhibition centers the work, scholarship, and teaching legacy of Professor Leon Renfro whose influence as an artist and educator at Texas Southern University shaped generations of students. During the research process for this exhibition, Avery Brown Renfro discovered and obtained Professor Leon Renfro’s thesis through archival research. That document, along with additional archival materials, now serves as an important intellectual and historical foundation for understanding his work and teaching legacy.

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Renfro’s mentorship reached many artists during his time at Texas Southern University. Among those students was Bruce Brown, Army artist, muralist, and combat soldier, whose work represents part of the broader community of artists shaped by Renfro’s teaching. As the granddaughter of Leon Renfro, the niece of Bruce Brown, and a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University in African American Studies, Avery Brown Renfro approaches this exhibition as both family and curator, holding responsibility for care, documentation, and context as this legacy is preserved and shared with new audiences.

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This collection reflects how knowledge is transmitted and how Black creative expression is cultivated within and beyond academic spaces. Brown Renfro honors the professor, the student, and the curator as interconnected roles, positioning the classroom as a place of transformation, the studio as a place of truth, and the curator as a bridge between history and the future.