Charles Wilbert White, Jr. (April 2, 1918 – October 3, 1979) was an American artist known for his chronicling of
African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
related subjects in paintings, drawings, lithographs, and murals. White's lifelong commitment to chronicling the triumphs and struggles of his community in representational from, cemented him as one of the most well-known artists in African American art history. Following his death in 1979, White's work has been included in the permanent collections of the
Art Institute of Chicago,
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum).
LACMA was founded in 19 ...
,
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
,
the Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–1942), ...
,
The Newark Museum
The Newark Museum of Art (formerly known as the Newark Museum), in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, United States, is the state's largest museum. It holds major collections of American art, decorative arts, contemporary art, and arts of Asia, A ...
, and the Santa Barbara Museum of Art. White's best known work is ''The Contribution of the Negro to American Democracy'', a mural at
Hampton University. In 2018, the centenary year of his birth, the first major retrospective exhibition of his work was organized by the
Art Institute of Chicago and the
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues.
It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...
.
Early life and education
Charles Wilbert White was born on April 2, 1918, to Ethelene Gary, a
domestic worker, and Charles White Sr, a railroad and
construction worker
A construction worker is a worker employed in the physical construction of the built environment and its infrastructure.
Definition
By some definitions, workers may be engaged in manual labour as unskilled or semi-skilled workers; they may be sk ...
, on the
South Side of
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
. Ethelene was born in
Mississippi
Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
and came north in the
Great Migration. She raised Charles, and as she had no child care, she would often leave him at the
public library.
There White developed an affinity for art and reading at a young age.
White's mother bought him a set of
oil paint
Oil paint is a type of slow-drying paint that consists of particles of pigment suspended in a drying oil, commonly linseed oil. The viscosity of the paint may be modified by the addition of a solvent such as turpentine or white spirit, and va ...
s when he was seven years old, which hooked White on painting. White also played music as a child, studied modern dance, and was part of theatre groups; however, he stated that art was his true passion.
White's mother also took him to the
Art Institute of Chicago, where he would read and look at paintings—developing a particular interest in the works of
Winslow Homer
Winslow Homer (February 24, 1836 – September 29, 1910) was an American landscape painter and illustrator, best known for his marine subjects. He is considered one of the foremost painters in 19th-century America and a preeminent figure in ...
and
George Inness
George Inness (May 1, 1825 – August 3, 1894) was a prominent American landscape painter.
Now recognized as one of the most influential American artists of the nineteenth century, Inness was influenced by the Hudson River School at the s ...
. Since White had little money growing up, he often painted on whatever surfaces he could find including shirts, cardboard, and window blinds. During the
Great Depression, young White tried to conceal his passion for art in fear of embarrassment; however, this ended when White got a job
painting signs at the age of fourteen. White learned how to mix paints by sitting-in every day for a week on an Art Institute sponsored painting class that was taking place at a park near his home.
["Oral history interview with Charles W. White, 1965 March 9"]
Archives of American Art, Smithsonian. His mother remarried when White's father died in 1926. She married a steel mill worker who would become an abusive alcoholic, especially towards a young White. This experience lead him to escape into art. White had few opportunities to pursue his natural talent at this time due to the abuse and lack of resources from his household which was economically insufficient.
This is also the same year his mother began sending him to
Mississippi
Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...
twice a year to his aunts, Hasty and Harriet Baines, where he would learn about his heritage and African American
Southern folklore. White showed persistence while battling abuse and poverty. He used his own experiences, curiosity and feelings about the neglected history of African Americans to help shape a common theme within his work.
An early activist, as a teenager, he volunteered his talents and became the house artist at the
National Negro Congress The National Negro Congress (NNC) (1936–ca. 1946) was an American organization formed in 1936 at Howard University as a broadly based organization with the goal of fighting for Black liberation; it was the successor to the League of Struggle for N ...
in Chicago.
Later, in a union with fellow black artists, White was arrested while picketing.
White won a grant during the seventh grade to attend Saturday art classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. After reading
Alain Locke's book ''
The New Negro: An Interpretation'', a critique of the
Harlem Renaissance, White's social views changed. He learned after reading Locke's text about important African American figures in American history, and questioned his teachers on why they were not taught to students in school, causing some to label him a "rebel problematic child".
White did not graduate from high school, having lost a year due to his refusal to attend class after being disillusioned with the teaching system. While he was encouraged by his art teachers to submit his art works and won various scholarships, these would later be taken away from him as an "error" and given to whites instead.
He was admitted to two art schools, each then pulled his acceptance because of his race.
White ultimately received a full scholarship to attend the
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which grew into the museum and ...
. While there, White identified
Mitchell Siporin,
Francis Chapin
Francis W. Chapin (February 14, 1899 – February 23, 1965) was an American artist. His works included both watercolors and oil paintings of landscapes and portraits.
Biography
He was born in Bristolville, Ohio. He graduated from Washingt ...
, and
Aaron Bohrod
Aaron Bohrod (21 November 1907 – 3 April 1992) was an American artist best known for his trompe-l'œil still-life paintings.
Education
Bohrod was born in Chicago in 1907, the son of an emigree Bessarabian-Jewish grocer. Bohrod studied at ...
as his influences. He was an excellent draftsman, completing five drawing courses and received a final "A grade". To pay the costs of art supplies, White became a cook, using his mother's instruction and recipes. White later became an art teacher at St. Elizabeth Catholic High School.
Career
In 1940, White stated in an interview, "I am interested in the social, even the propagandistic angle of painting that will say what I have to say. Paint is the only weapon I have with which to fight what I resent." In 1938, White was hired by the Illinois Art Project, a state affiliate of the
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration (WPA; renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration) was an American New Deal agency that employed millions of jobseekers (mostly men who were not formally educated) to carry out public works projects, i ...
. His work received an extended showing at the
Chicago Coliseum
Chicago Coliseum was the name applied to three large indoor arenas in Chicago, Illinois, which stood successively from the 1860s to 1982; they served as venues for sports events, large (national-class) conventions and as exhibition halls. The f ...
during the ''Exhibition of the Art of the American Negro'', which was part of the
American Negro Exposition
The American Negro Exposition, also known as the Black World's Fair and the Diamond Jubilee Exposition, was a world's fair held in Chicago from July until September in 1940, to celebrate the 75th anniversary (also known as a diamond jubilee) of t ...
commemorating the 75th anniversary of
Thirteenth Amendment ending slavery.
An important figure in what became known as the
Chicago Black Renaissance
The Chicago Black Renaissance (also known as the Black Chicago Renaissance) was a creative movement that blossomed out of the Chicago Black Belt on the city's South Side and spanned the 1930s and 1940s before a transformation in art and cultur ...
, White taught art classes at the
Southside Community Art Center
The South Side Community Art Center is a community art center in Chicago that opened in 1940 with support from the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project in Illinois. Opened in Douglas, Chicago#Bronzeville, Bronzeville in an 1893 mans ...
.
[ Following his first show at Paragon Studios in Cincinnati in 1938, White's work was exhibited widely throughout the United States, including, among many others, exhibitions at the Roko Gallery, the ]Boston Museum of Fine Arts
The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...
, and the Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...
. In 1939 he produced his WPA mural ''Five Great American Negroes'', now at Howard University
Howard University (Howard) is a Private university, private, University charter#Federal, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, classifie ...
Gallery of Art.[ White also showed at the Palace of Culture in Warsaw and the Pushkin Museum. In 1976 his work was featured in ''Two Centuries of Black American'' ''Art'', LACMA's first exhibition devoted exclusively to ]African-American Artists
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ensla ...
.
White moved to in 1941 to teach at Dillard University
Dillard University is a private, historically black university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded in 1930 and incorporating earlier institutions founded as early as 1869 after the American Civil War, it is affiliated with the United Church of C ...
. Beginning in that year, he was married briefly to famed sculptor
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
and printmaker Elizabeth Catlett
Elizabeth Catlett, born as Alice Elizabeth Catlett, also known as Elizabeth Catlett Mora (April 15, 1915 – April 2, 2012) was an African American sculptor and graphic artist best known for her depictions of the Black-American experience in the ...
, who also taught at Dillard. He served in the US Army during WWII, but was discharged when he contracted tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, i ...
(TB). White and Catlett moved to New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
and also studied together at an arts collective in Mexico City
Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital city, capital and primate city, largest city of Mexico, and the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North Amer ...
. While in New York City White learned lithography and etching techniques at the Arts Student League, taking direction from renowned artist Harry Sternberg
Harry Sternberg (1904–2001), was an American painter, printmaker and educator. He taught at the Art Students League of New York, from 1933 to c. 1966.
Biography Childhood, family life, and education
Sternberg's parents had immigrated from Ru ...
who encouraged him to move beyond “stylization to individuation in his figures”. It was here where White honed his technical skills and developed a more deepened vision of black society.[ White along with Catlett met a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany named Viktor Lowenfeld who taught at ]Hampton Institute
Hampton University is a private, historically black, research university in Hampton, Virginia. Founded in 1868 as Hampton Agricultural and Industrial School, it was established by Black and White leaders of the American Missionary Association aft ...
in Virginia. Lowenfeld invited the couple to teach at Hampton. Taking Sternberg advice to heart, White would go on to paint one of his most famous works, ''''''The Contribution of the Negro to American Democracy" ''at Hampton Institute.''
Printmaking enabled White to reach a wider public more directly and allowed him to bring together his social commitment and artistic practice. Although he had long been aware of art’s social utility, with his lithographs
Lithography () is a planographic method of printing originally based on the immiscibility of oil and water. The printing is from a stone (lithographic limestone) or a metal plate with a smooth surface. It was invented in 1796 by the German a ...
and linocut
Linocut, also known as lino print, lino printing or linoleum art, is a printmaking technique, a variant of woodcut in which a sheet of linoleum (sometimes mounted on a wooden block) is used for a relief surface. A design is cut into the linoleum s ...
s he was finally able to communicate with a large, cross-national community of black workers and socialist artists, as opposed to his paintings, which were generally tied to individual purchasers. He started providing political cartoons for the Daily Worker
The ''Daily Worker'' was a newspaper published in New York City by the Communist Party USA, a formerly Comintern-affiliated organization. Publication began in 1924. While it generally reflected the prevailing views of the party, attempts were ...
and, in 1953, he published in association with Masses and Mainstream a portfolio of six reproductions of his ink-and-charcoal drawings, entitled 'Charles White: Six Drawings'. Priced at only $3, this portfolio aimed at getting art to the people, a main concern for progressive artists of the period. In this respect it was a great success, and White himself acknowledged this as he learned that a group of workers in Alabama combined their savings to buy a portfolio and shared the pictures among themselves.
In 1956, due to continued breathing problems (perhaps arising from the earlier case of TB), White moved to Los Angeles for its drier, more mild climate.[ From 1965 to his death in 1979, White taught at the ]Otis Art Institute
Otis College of Art and Design is a private art and design school in Los Angeles, California. Established in 1918, it was the city's first independent professional school of art. The main campus is located in the former IBM Aerospace headquarte ...
in Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
. On faculty at Otis, he was a beacon for African American artists who came to study with him. Among those he taught were Alonzo Davis, David Hammons
David Hammons (born July 24, 1943) is an American artist, best known for his works in and around New York City and Los Angeles during the 1970s and 1980s.
Early life
David Hammons was born in 1943 in Springfield, Illinois, the youngest of ten ...
, and Kerry James Marshall
Kerry James Marshall (born October 17, 1955) is an American artist and professor, known for his paintings of Black figures. He previously taught painting at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 2017, Marshall ...
. An elementary school was named after him and is located on the former Otis College campus. Later in life White moved to Altadena, California where he remained until his death of congestive heart failure in 1979.
White's best known work is the mural ''The Contribution of the Negro to American Democracy'' at Hampton University. Measuring around 12 feet by seven feet, the mural depicts a number of notable African-Americans including Denmark Vesey
Denmark Vesey (also Telemaque) ( July 2, 1822) was an early 19th century free Black and community leader in Charleston, South Carolina, who was accused and convicted of planning a major slave revolt in 1822. Although the alleged plot was di ...
, Nat Turner
Nat Turner's Rebellion, historically known as the Southampton Insurrection, was a rebellion of enslaved Virginians that took place in Southampton County, Virginia, in August 1831.Schwarz, Frederic D.1831 Nat Turner's Rebellion" ''American Heri ...
, , George Washington Carver, Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman (born Araminta Ross, March 10, 1913) was an American abolitionist and social activist. Born into slavery, Tubman escaped and subsequently made some 13 missions to rescue approximately 70 slaves, including family and friends, u ...
, Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 1817 or 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became ...
, and Marian Anderson
Marian Anderson (February 27, 1897April 8, 1993) was an American contralto. She performed a wide range of music, from opera to spirituals. Anderson performed with renowned orchestras in major concert and recital venues throughout the United ...
. White was elected to the National Academy of Design
The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the f ...
in 1972.
Legacy
White gained inspiration from many of his contemporaries including his first wife Elizabeth Catlett
Elizabeth Catlett, born as Alice Elizabeth Catlett, also known as Elizabeth Catlett Mora (April 15, 1915 – April 2, 2012) was an African American sculptor and graphic artist best known for her depictions of the Black-American experience in the ...
, Horace Pippin
Horace Pippin (February 22, 1888 – July 6, 1946) was a self-taught American artist who painted a range of themes, including scenes inspired by his service in World War I, landscapes, portraits, and biblical subjects. Some of his best-known work ...
, Gordon Parks
Gordon Roger Alexander Buchanan Parks (November 30, 1912 – March 7, 2006) was an American photographer, composer, author, poet, and film director, who became prominent in U.S. documentary photojournalism in the 1940s through 1970s—particula ...
, Romare Bearden
Romare Bearden (September 2, 1911 – March 12, 1988) was an American artist, author, and songwriter. He worked with many types of media including cartoons, oils, and collages. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bearden grew up in New York City a ...
, Jacob Lawrence
Jacob Armstead Lawrence (September 7, 1917 – June 9, 2000) was an American painter known for his portrayal of African-American historical subjects and contemporary life. Lawrence referred to his style as "dynamic cubism", although by his own ...
, Cliff Joseph, John Wilson, John Biggers, and others. White helped inspire the next generation of conscious black artists including the likes of Benny Andrews
Benny Andrews (November 13, 1930 – November 10, 2006) was an African-American artist, activist and educator.
Born in Plainview, Georgia, Andrews earned a BFA in painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1958, and soon after m ...
, Faith Ringgold
Faith Ringgold (born October 8, 1930 in Harlem, New York City) is an American painter, writer, mixed media sculptor, and performance artist, best known for her narrative quilts.
Early life
Faith Ringgold was born the youngest of three children ...
, Dana Chandler
Dana C. Chandler, Jr., also known as Akin Duro, (born April 7, 1941), is a Black Power artist, activist and Professor Emeritus at Simmons College.
Early life and education
Chandler was born in Lynn, Massachusetts. He grew up in the Roxbury n ...
, David Hammons
David Hammons (born July 24, 1943) is an American artist, best known for his works in and around New York City and Los Angeles during the 1970s and 1980s.
Early life
David Hammons was born in 1943 in Springfield, Illinois, the youngest of ten ...
, Elliot Pinkney, Alonzo Adams, Kyle Olani Adams and scores of others.[ White's works are in the collections of a number of institutions, including ]Atlanta University
Clark Atlanta University (CAU or Clark Atlanta) is a private, Methodist, historically black research university in Atlanta, Georgia. Clark Atlanta is the first Historically Black College or University (HBCU) in the Southern United States. Fou ...
, the Barnett Aden Gallery, the Deutsche Academie der Kunste, the Dresden Museum of Art, Howard University
Howard University (Howard) is a Private university, private, University charter#Federal, federally chartered historically black research university in Washington, D.C. It is Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education, classifie ...
, the Library of Congress
The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...
, the Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...
, the Minneapolis Institute of Art
The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the largest art museums in the United State ...
, the Oakland Museum
The Oakland Museum of California or OMCA (formerly the Oakland Museum) is an interdisciplinary museum dedicated to the art, history, and natural science of California, located adjacent to Oak Street, 10th Street, and 11th Street in Oakland, Cal ...
, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art is an art museum in Kansas City, Missouri, known for its encyclopedic collection of art from nearly every continent and culture, and especially for its extensive collection of Asian art.
In 2007, ''Time'' magaz ...
, Syracuse University and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts
The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, or VMFA, is an art museum in Richmond, Virginia, United States, which opened in 1936. The museum is owned and operated by the Commonwealth of Virginia. Private donations, endowments, and funds are used for the s ...
. The CEJJES Institute of Pomona, New York, owns a number of White's works and has established a dedicated Charles W. White Gallery. In 2015, Drs. Susan G. and Edmund W. Gordon
Edmund Wyatt Gordon (born June 13, 1921) is a professor of psychology who "had a tremendous influence on contemporary thinking in psychology, education and social policy and the implications of his work for the schooling of lower status youth an ...
of Pomona, New York donated their collection of works by Charles White to the Blanton Museum of Art
The Jack S. Blanton Museum of Art (often referred to as the Blanton or the BMA) at the University of Texas at Austin is one of the largest university art museums in the U.S. with 189,340 square feet devoted to temporary exhibitions, permanent col ...
at the University of Texas, Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
.
White's popularity faded after his death both because he was a person of color in an industry that unfairly favored white artists and preferred more abstract and conceptual styles in direct opposition to White's style of figurative art. However White's popularity and legacy lives on in Altadena, California
Altadena () ("Alta", Spanish language, Spanish for "Upper", and "dena" from Pasadena, California, Pasadena) is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in the Verdugo Mountains region of Los Angeles County, California, approximately 14 ...
where he spent a great deal of his later years. Shortly after his death a park was re-named after him and it remains today the only park to be named after an American born artist. The Charles White Park hosted an annual event “Charles White Memorial Arts Festival” which brought African American and local artists into the community until its discontinuation in the 1990s. Currently members of the Altadena
Altadena () ("Alta", Spanish for "Upper", and "dena" from Pasadena) is an unincorporated area and census-designated place in the Verdugo Mountains region of Los Angeles County, California, approximately 14 miles (23 km) from the downtown ...
Arts council are working with local community and other stake holders to bring the event back to the community.
Reception
In 1982 a retrospective exhibition of White's work was held at the Studio Museum in Harlem.[ In the 1990s, the idea of staging a major traveling retrospective exhibition arose. Ultimately, over approximately a ten year period, staff from the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art attempted to locate various White pieces to put together an extensive exhibition of his work. The exhibition opened in Chicago in 2018, traveling to New York City and Los Angeles.]
White "was a humanist, drawn to the physical body and more literal representations of the lives of African-Americans", according to Lauren Warnecke for the ''Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...
''.[ While this put him out of step with the abstract movement in art, the power of his work is undeniable according to the '']Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'' Christopher Knight, especially White's graphic work in graphite, charcoal, crayon and ink. ''The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'' art critic, Philip Kennicott finds White's work central to American art. "Grace, passion, coolness, toughness, ndbeauty" mark White's work, according to Holland Cotter in ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
''; White had "the hand of an angel" and "the eye of a sage".[
In November 2019, two works by White went up for the first time in Christie's and ]Sotheby's
Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...
main-seasonal New York City contemporary art auctions. Both works, ''Banner for Willie J.'' (1976) -- a portrait of White's cousin, who was killed—and ''Ye Shall Inherit the Earth'' (1953) -- a charcoal drawing of civil rights icon Rosa Lee Ingram
Rosa Lee Ingram (died 1980) was an African American sharecropper and widowed mother of 12 children, who was at the center of one of the most explosive capital punishment cases in U.S. history. In the 1940s, she became an icon for the civil rights ...
with a babe-in-arms—made sales records for the artist's work.
References
Further reading
*
*
* (reviews from 1943 to 1976 that appeared in the paper)
*
External links
Charles White in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art
Charles White: A Retrospective
Biographical Sketch
Charles White in the National Gallery of Australia's Kenneth Tyler Collection
Charles White in the Minneapolis Institute or Art
Minneapolis, MN
{{DEFAULTSORT:White, Charles Wilbert
1918 births
1979 deaths
American muralists
Artists from Chicago
20th-century American painters
American male painters
Otis College of Art and Design faculty
School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni
20th-century African-American painters
20th-century American male artists