User:Tuk46853/Charles White (artist)

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Charles Wilbert White, Jr. (April 2, 1918 – October 3, 1979) was an African American artist known for his chronicling of African American related subjects in paintings, drawings, lithographs, and murals. Throughout his career, White's lifelong commitment to chronicling the triumphs and struggles of African Americans 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 Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Newark Museum, 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. 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.

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, on the South Side of Chicago. Ethelene was born in Mississippi 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 paints 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 and George Inness. 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 in an Art Institute sponsored painting class that was taking place at a park near his home. 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 twice a year to his aunts, Hasty and Harriet Baines, where he would learn about his heritage and African American Southern folklore. These themes would heavily influence his art for the rest of his career as an artist. 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 in Chicago. Later, in a union with fellow black artists, White was arrested while picketing.

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." White moved to New Orleans in 1941 to teach at Dillard University. Beginning in that year, he was married briefly to famed sculptor and printmaker Elizabeth Catlett, who also taught at Dillard. (Removed Sentence) He served in the US Army during WWII, but was discharged when he contracted tuberculosis (TB). White and Catlett moved to New York City and also studied together at an arts collective in Mexico City. While in New York City White learned lithography and etching techniques at the Arts Student League, taking direction from renowned artist Harry Sternberg 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 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.

Legacy

White gained inspiration from many of his contemporaries including his first wife Elizabeth Catlett, Horace Pippin, Gordon Parks, Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence, Cliff Joseph, John Wilson, John Biggers, and others. White helped inspire the next generation of conscious black artists including the likes of Benny Andrews, Faith Ringgold, Dana Chandler, David Hammons, Elliot Pinkney, Alonzo Adams, Kyle Olani Adams and scores of others. White's view on the racism and prejudice inflicted upon African Americans reflected and helped influence a major wave of African American art history. White's works are also in the collections of a number of institutions, including Atlanta University, the Barnett Aden Gallery, the Deutsche Academie der Kunste, the Dresden Museum of Art, Howard University, the Library of Congress, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Oakland Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Syracuse University and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. 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 of Pomona, New York donated their collection of works by Charles White to the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas, Austin.

White's popularity faded after his death for two main reasons. First, because he was a person of color in an industry that unfairly favored white artists who 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 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 Arts council are working with local community and other stake holders to bring the event back to the community.