Edward Clark's abstract expressionist
tondo The Big Egg (1968) establishes the
artist among the earliest American painters to experiment with oval forms (later explored by
artists like Jasper Johns), while works by the 1970s black
artist collective AfriCOBRA — who operated loosely as the visual arts arm of the Black Arts Movement, and whose influence can be found in the work of Kerry James Marshall and David Hammons — are given prominence.
Higgs, the director of White Columns, asked twelve
artists to paint a
tondo, then he tethered appropriate books to the paintings.