Charles White
1918–1979
Charles White’s paintings, drawings, and prints are characterized by an unwavering dedication to representing the history and experience of African Americans. Among his best-known works is a mural commission he created in Chicago in 1939–40 for the Works Progress Administration. He remained committed to a social realist style of figurative painting into the postwar era, when abstraction dominated the mainstream art world. White’s socially conscious portraits portray both celebrated civil rights activists, such as Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass, and archetypal everyday community figures, including mothers and laborers, as venerable, valiant subjects.
White began his Wanted Poster Series in the late 1960s, after coming across reproductions of pre–Civil War posters that advertised slave auctions or economic rewards for the return of runaway slaves, thereby assigning a specific monetary value to their lives. Against an abstract, sepia-toned background recalling creased and timeworn parchment, Wanted Poster Series #4 presents a cropped image of a contemporary girl; the letters stenciled near the top of her picture identify her as “Sarah,” while the sum printed below it, “$3600,” indifferently assesses her worth as if she were a slave. As White explained: “During the past decade the black people of this country have waged a heroic militant struggle for their fundamental rights. As a result they have on numerous occasions been jailed or in some instances become fugitives. I see many parallels between the period of slavery and now. Thus in a series of works, still continuing, I made this point.”
Introduction
Charles Wilbert White, Jr. (April 2, 1918 – October 3, 1979) was an American artist known for his chronicling of African American related subjects in paintings, drawings, lithographs, and murals. White's lifelong commitment to chronicling the triumphs and struggles of his community in representational form 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 Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the National Gallery of 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.
Wikidata identifier
Q5083521
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License . Accessed May 22, 2025.
Introduction
Noted as one of the most celebrated and influential African American artists of the twentieth century. Born in Chicago and was educated at the Art Institute of Chicago and the Arts Students league of New York. He spent most of his career between Los Angeles and Chicago. His work, which is mainly figural, deals with the stuggles of African-Americans and humanity.
Country of birth
United States
Roles
Artist, muralist, painter
ULAN identifier
500115749
Names
Charles White, Charles White III, Charles Wilbert White, Charles Wilbur White
Information from the Getty Research Institute's Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License. Accessed May 22, 2025.
