A white canvas stretches out in front of Frank Frazier. He gives a bottle of shoe polish a shake and begins to draw. Slowly, a crowd of protesters holding up signs begins to take form.
“I’m a Black artist, and I say that strongly because I want my children, who are the future, to know that I exist, and I want other children to know that we Black artists exist here in Dallas,” Frazier, 83, says.
Artist Frank Frazier uses shoe polish to create a piece for UNT Dallas College of Law in Dallas, Monday, March 2, 2026. “Back in 20s and 30s, white men used to paint themselves with shoe polish to make fun of us,” Frazier said. “So I took shoe polish and did something different with it.”
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Artist Frank Frazier sits at a folding table in his living room and draws African symbols on a shoe polish piece for UNT Dallas College of Law in Dallas, Monday, March 2, 2026.
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Artist Frank Frazier concentrates on creating a shoe polish piece at his home in Dallas, Monday, March 2, 2026.
Angela Piazza/The Dallas Morning News
Artist Frank Frazier uses shoe polish to create a piece for UNT Dallas College of Law in Dallas, Monday, March 2, 2026.
Angela Piazza/The Dallas Morning News
Artist Frank Frazier uses shoe polish and marker to create a piece for UNT Dallas College of Law in Dallas, Monday, March 2, 2026.
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Dallas R&B and neo-soul musical artist Erykah Badu, center, flips through an art catalogue featuring artist Lakeem Wilson’s (right) “Life in Black Ink” series in Frank Frazier’s basement in Dallas, Sunday, June 14, 2026. Frazier’s adopted granddaughter and assistant Seidah Williams, left, stands in front of her own art work and watches.
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Judy Frazier, wife of Frank, speaks with Dallas R&B and neo-soul musical artist Erykah Badu during a combined house art show and birthday party event in Dallas, Sunday, June 14, 2026. Frazier gives credit to his wife’s support for his successful art career. “She worked for the airline so I can fly the shows, and her support helps me be a big fat show off like I am sometimes, and I enjoy it,” he said.
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Frank Frazier chats with Dallas R&B and neo-soul musical artist Erykah Badu in his home during a house art show in Dallas, Sunday, June 14, 2026. Badu’s mother and the Fraziers were longtime neighbors in Oak Cliff.
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Dallas R&B and neo-soul musical artist Erykah Badu visits artist Frank Frazier’s house art show in Dallas, Sunday, June 14, 2026.
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A sculpture by artist Billy Edmond is on display at the Southwest Black Art Show in Fair Park, Dallas, Saturday, April 25, 2026. Edmond is a part of Frazier’s Visions in Black collective.
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Frank Frazier speaks with Crew Production Manager, Lonnie Duke, in front of his stall at the Southwest Black Art Show in Fair Park, Dallas, Saturday, April 25, 2026. Frazier founded and organizes the show.
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Candace Hurst Rhodes speaks with Austin based artist Rhea Rose at the Southwest Black Art Show in Fair Park, Dallas, Saturday, April 25, 2026. Hurst Rhodes purchased a print from Rose.
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Jessica Hayden looks speaks with artist Don O’Bannon while visiting his stall at the Southwest Black Art Show in Fair Park, Dallas, Saturday, April 25, 2026.
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Lonnie Duke hugs Marie Tavernier in greeting at the Southwest Black Art Show in Fair Park, Dallas, Saturday, April 25, 2026.
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A gold ring flashes on Fraizer’s ink-stained left hand as he fills in a Sankofa – an African symbol resembling a bird with its head turned back. The Sankofa represents looking at the past to straighten out your future, Frazier says.
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This piece, for UNT Dallas College of Law, is part of Frazier’s “Shoe Polish Collection,” which he began around 2010 and features India ink, black shoe polish, marker and fabric on canvas. The black polish holds as much significance as the scenes he creates.
Multiple pieces in the collection depict upside-down American flags, signifying a country in distress, and law enforcement brutality toward people of color. Frazier’s work is as bold and unapologetic as the man who created it.
A framed shoe polish piece by artist Frank Frazier depicts an upside-down American Flag in Dallas, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. “When a ship is at sea and there’s something wrong with it, they put the flag upside down for distress,” Frazier said. “That’s how I feel about the country right now.”
Angela Piazza/The Dallas Morning News
From illustrations of doo-wap musicians to African ancestors to slave ships, Frazier’s art highlights the wide range of Black history.
It’s been displayed in homes, museums and galleries across the country and recently a show in Puerto Rico. Notable locations include fine art shows hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington D.C., the Stella Jones Art Gallery in New Orleans, an exhibition in the African American Museum of Dallas and in TV and in films including Eddie Murphy’s Coming to America.
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But creating and showcasing this work has been a challenge for Fraizer. He was uninvited from an art show in Cottonwood, Texas, after other artists were offended by his work in the late 2000s.
“They said, ‘You got a Black president. Why are you doing all this mean radical stuff?’ And I just looked at them, and I said, ‘Because I can,’” Frazier says with tears in his eyes.
Originally from Harlem, New York, Frazier moved to Dallas in 1978 after serving in the Vietnam War, he says.
He worked for the city’s sanitation department, digging up broken sewer lines, and eventually became an art teacher at Paul Quinn College in Oak Cliff.
He held his first art show at RedBird Mall more than 20 years ago.
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Now, his annual Southwest Black Art Show, which is usually held in the African American Museum at Fair Park, features more than 20 fine art exhibitors.
In the late ‘70s through the ‘90s, he and his wife, Judy, opened several art galleries in Dallas, including one called Visions in Black. That gallery closed after rent became too expensive.
Frazier still operates a small gallery from his home, but has repurposed Visions in Black for an artist collective.
FIRST PHOTO: Lonnie Duke, Frank Frazier’s crew production manager, talks about a hallway leading to Frazier’s basement in Dallas, Friday, Feb. 27, 2026. The walls of the hallway feature artwork by the Dallas artist and the handprints of his family. SECOND PHOTO: Lonnie Duke holds up a mixed media piece labeled Dakar in Frazier’s basement. Mixed media pieces featured textiles and other items from Africa.
The collective allows artists under Fraizer’s tutelage to pool their resources and showcase their work around the country. It’s one of the ways Frazier empowers young artists by teaching them the business side of art.
African American Museum of Dallas curator and artist, Lakeem Wilson, 34, is a part of the collective.
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Wilson says Frazier teaches artists to “take control of their own destinies” by selling directly to buyers instead of having to use gallery space or do business through an art dealer.
“Visions in Black is Frank Frazier’s lineage,” Wilson says. “He’s never looking for us to pay him back. He just wants us to pay it forward.”
Wilson carries on his mentor’s legacy through his work at the museum.
Over the summer, he taught high school and college students how to handle archive artwork. In February, the museum will host a national art competition for established and emerging artists called the Carroll Harris Simms National Black Art Competition and Exhibition.
Frazier also opened doors for Seidah Williams, who began as his assistant about 20 years ago and Mark Crow, who credits Frazier for steering him away from gangs.
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After catching her doodling on a box filled with his unframed artwork at an art show, Frazier encouraged Williams, 42, to create six pieces on canvas and display them at their next show. She now sells her work next to his.
Frazier took Crow under his wing when he was 16 years old. He showed the now 59-year-old how to be a positive role model in his community.
Friends, family and artists Frank Frazier’s Visions in Black collective gather in his basement to view art during a house show in Dallas, Sunday, June 14, 2026. Dallas R&B and neo-soul musical artist Erykah Badu speaks with the collective’s artists.
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Crow, Wilson and Williams are three of more than 10 artists in Visions in Black. However, Williams says Frazier has drawn countless other artists into his sphere over the years.
In June, collective artists sold work from temporary walls set up throughout the first, second and basement levels of Frazier’s home.
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Art collectors, other artists, family members and neighbors packed into his purple house in Oak Cliff. Dallas R&B and neo-soul singer Erykah Badu was a surprise visitor.
Towards the end of the evening, a large crowd gathered on the first floor around Frazier, who has restricted mobility, to swap stories with the man who brought them together and enjoy cake for Judy and Williams’ combined birthday celebration.
“If you have been in his life or have been around him … or heard anything from him, then you’re blessed,” Crow says. “People like that don’t come around that often.”
This reporting is part of the Future of North Texas, a community-funded journalism initiative supported by the Commit Partnership, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Lisa and Charles Siegel, the McCune-Losinger Family Fund, The Meadows Foundation, the Perot Foundation, the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and the University of Texas at Dallas. The News retains full editorial control of this coverage.