[The introduction to this series of posts is here.] With this last post in the series, I want to again express my gratitude to Professor Edward (‘Eddie’) Chambers, Department of Art and Art History, University of Texas at Austin, for his permission to share material from his website.
“In 1999, the important publication, African Americans in Art: Selections from The Art Institute of Chicago was published. Alongside reproductions of said works, the publication featured essays by Colin L. Westerbeck, Amy M. Mooney, Andrea D. Barnwell and Kirsten P. Buick, Daniel Schulman, and Cherise Smith. Several of these scholars were joined by others, who penned the ‘Portfolio Entries’ that occupied an important proportion of the publication.
A detail from Charles White’s majestic Harvest Talk occupied the cover of African Americans in Art: Selections from The Art Institute of Chicago, and a reproduction of the work appeared on page 70. The ‘Portfolio’ entry was written by Andrea D. Barnwell, who, in 2002, would go on to author the first monograph on White in around 35 years. Unbelievably perhaps, by the turn of the 21st century it had been well over thirty years since the last major publication on Charles White (that being his 1967 monograph, Images of Dignity). In 2002 Pomegranate Publications published its first instalment of The David C. Driskell Series of African American Art, Charles White, written by Andrea D. Barnwell. It was in many respects the most comprehensive monograph to date on the celebrated, late Los Angeles-based African-American artist Charles White.) Barnwell’s notes in African Americans in Art: Selections from The Art Institute of Chicago, on Harvest Talk, included the following:
‘White, whose father was a railroad and steel worker and mother a domestic worker, has a deep respect for labor. Harvest Talk, one of six charcoal and carbon pencil drawings originally exhibited at the ACA Galley in New York in 1953, exemplifies the artist’s mature drawing style. Here his strong, assured manner, coupled with the heroic proportions of the figures and the emphasis on the large scythe, evokes the indomitability of his subjects in the face of hard work. The presence of the scythe (an emblem often associated with the Soviet Union), as well as the social realist sensibilities that prevail throughout White’s oeuvre, his travels to the U.S.S.R. (where he exchanged ideas with Russian artists), and his writings for and affiliation with left-wing publications (such as Masses & Mainstream, Freedomways, and the Daily Worker) suggest that Harvest Talk was inspired by socialist ideals. Like many of White’s works on paper, Harvest Talk conveys the power of a mural, despite its relatively small format.”
“The Other Side of Color: African American Art in the Collection of Camille O. and William H. Cosby, Jr. (San Francisco, CA: Pomegranate Press, 2001)
This lavish, large scale publication was written by leading scholar of African American art, David Driskell and looked at African American Art in the Collection of Camille O. and William H. Cosby, Jr. Camille O. and William H. Cosby, Jr. each provided Introductions, and the artists’ biographies in The Other Side of Color were written by René Hanks. The book’s Foreword was written by Erika Ranee Cosby, and an Overview was provided by Daphne Driskell-Coles. Driskell’s text was divided into six sections, and Charles White appeared in Part Five, ‘The New Black Image in American Art.’
It is a measure of the calibre of White’s art that out of the nearly 50 leading artists represented in the publication, it was one of his pieces – Homage to Langston Hughes, oil on canvas, 48 x 48 inches – was selected for the cover. The painting was also reproduced, in full, on page 129. Charles White had had a long association with Bill Cosby, pointed to by the inclusion in The Other Side of Color of a full-page reproduction of Charles White’s drawing of Bill Cosby, Bill, 1968, charcoal on artist’s board, 57 x 33 ¼ inches. In her Introduction, Camille O. Cosby pointed to the significance of the Cosby’s relationship with White: ‘… On September 8, 1967, Bill and I purchased our first African American artwork, a Chinese ink and charcoal drawing by Charles White titled Nude. Twelve days later we bought another Charles White Chinese ink and charcoal drawing titled Cathedral of Life, and in 1969 we acquired Seed of Heritage. Eventually we acquired eighteen of Charles White’s works, all from the Heritage Gallery in Los Angeles, California. During the same year Bull commissioned Mr. White to create his portrait. Mr. White’s depiction of Bill is unlike any other that I have seen; amazingly, Mr. White captured Bill’s seriousness and complexities. Indeed, this portrait is my favorite Charles White drawing.’
In her Foreword, Erika Ranee Cosby, daughter of Camille O. and William H. Cosby, Jr., continued the reflections on White’s portrait, Bill. ‘The subjects in Charles White’s works have souls that live and grow and change over time. I believe this to be one of a few key factors separating good art from great art. One last example of White’s exceptional talent is the portrait he did of my father in 1968. Many people who viewed this work thought it was not an accurate likeness. Some didn’t like it and said it made my father look too serious. As a kid, I always thought that the head was rendered too small for Dad’s exaggerated powerful shoulders. But my mother always loved that portrait. It remains her favorite, and she proudly displays it in her favorite room. Mom recently revealed to me that White perceived a part of Dad that she had always known, the private, more serious side of the man revered for his humor. I believe this is the only portrait ever done of my father that presents another side of him. Those of us who know him as a son, husband, father, and close friend know him not only as a person with an amazing talent to make the world laugh, but also as a man with a deep, compassionate, and contemplative soul. Charles White captured that soul.’
There were six reproductions of White’s work in The Other Side of Color, a number of which were full page. Driskell’s text on White was a particularly useful summary, which included, ‘Many of White’s works – more than twenty in the Cosby Collection of Fine Arts – were created during the height of the civil rights movement in the 1960s.’ René Hanks’ biographical summary was similarly useful and succinct. Perhaps as much as anything else, The Other Side of Color located White’s work within a broader context of African American art from the mid to late 18th century to the early 21st century.”
“It is a measure of the potency of Charles White’s images that long after his death, they continued to be used on the covers of books, the subjects of which struck a variety of chords with While’s art and his own biography. Typical in this regard was the 2005 publication, Jeffrey B. Leak, Racial Myths and Masculinity in African American Literature, published by University of Tennessee Press. From the book’s jacket flaps:
‘The portrayal of black men in our national literature is controversial, complex, and often contradictory. In Racial Myths and Masculinity in African American Literature, Jeffrey B. Leak identifies some of the long-held myths and stereotypes that persist in the work of black writers from the nineteenth century to the present—intellectual inferiority, criminality, sexual prowess, homosexual emasculation, and cultural deprivation. Utilizing Robert B. Stepto’s call-and-response theory, Leak studies four pairs of novels within the context of certain myths, identifying the literary tandems between them and seeking to discover the source of our culture's psychological preoccupation with black men.’
Calling upon interdisciplinary fields of study—literary theory, psychoanalysis, gender studies, legal theory, and queer theory—Leak offers groundbreaking analysis of both canonical texts (representing the ‘call’ of the call-and-response dyad) and texts by emerging writers (representing the ‘response’), including Frederick Douglass and Charles Johnson; Ralph Ellison and Brent Wade; Richard Wright and Ernest J. Gaines; and Toni Morrison and David Bradley. Though Leak does not claim that the ‘response’ texts are superior to the ‘call’ texts, he does argue that, in some cases, the newer work—such as Charles Johnson’s Ox Herding Tale—can address a theme or offer a narrative innovation not found in preceding texts, such as Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. In these instances, argues Leak, the newer texts constitute not only a response to the call text, but a substantial revision.
Leak offers the first in-depth criticism of black masculinity in a range of literary texts. In a final chapter, he expands his discussion to the emerging field of black masculinity studies, pointing to future directions for study, including memoir, film, drama, and others. Poised on the brink of exciting new trends in scholarship, Racial Myths and Masculinity in African American Literature is a flagship work, enhancing the understanding of literary constructions of black masculinity and the larger cultural imperatives to which these writers are reacting.
The jacket illustration is Charles White’s Frederick Douglass Leads the Way (1949).”
“It is a measure of the potency of Charles White’s images that long after his death, they continue to be used on the covers of books, the subjects of which strike a variety of chords with White’s art and his own biography. Typical in this regard Allan Dwight Callahan’s The Talking Book: African Americans and the Bible (Yale University Press, 2006). From the book’s rear cover:
‘The Talking Book casts the Bible as the central character in a vivid portrait of black America, tracing the origins of African-American culture from slavery’s secluded forest prayer meetings to the bright lights and bold style of today’s hip-hop artists. The Bible has profoundly influenced African Americans throughout history. From a variety of perspectives this wide-ranging book is the first to explore the Bible’s role in the triumph of the black experience. Using the Bible as a foundation, African Americans shared religious beliefs, created their own music, and shaped the ultimate key to their freedom—literacy. Allen Callahan highlights the intersection of biblical images with African-American music, politics, religion, art, and literature.
The author tells a moving story of a biblically informed African-American culture, identifying four major biblical images—Exile, Exodus, Ethiopia, and Emmanuel. He brings these themes to life in a unique African-American history that grows from the harsh experience of slavery into a rich culture that endures as one of the most important forces of twenty-first-century America.’
Allen Dwight Callahan is director of the Instituto Martin Luther King, Jr. in Salvador, Brazil.
The work by Charles White used on the cover was The Preacher, 1952. As well as gracing the cover of the book, a detail of the preacher (showing his hands clutching his bible) adorns the back inside flap of the dust jacket.”
“It is a measure of the potency of Charles White’s images that long after his death, they continue to be used on the covers of books, the subjects of which strike a variety of chords with White’s art and his own biography. Typical in this regard was the 2009 publication, Anticommunism and the African American Freedom Movement: “Another Side of the Story,” edited by Robbie Lieberman and Clarence Lang and published by Palgrave Macmillan. From the book’s rear cover:
‘The original essays in this book highlight the destructive impact of McCarthyism on the African American Freedom Movement. Recovering little-known stories of black radical activism, they challenge the idea that the Cold War was, on balance, beneficial to the movement. The book emphasizes what was lost when anticommunism forced the movement to submerge broader issues of economic justice, labor rights, feminism, and peace. The authors illustrate the often neglected or understated human costs of the Red Scare, focusing on local and individual stories that offer insight into larger national and international trends.’
The cover illustration was White’s ‘The Ingram Case’ from 1949. The Ingram Case was a notorious Jim Crow era judicial travesty that took place in rural Georgia in the late 1940s, which saw sharecropper Rosa Lee Ingram and her two sons received the death penalty in 1948 for murdering a white landowner in rural Georgia. The Ingram case was said to have received widespread press attention during the post-World War II era when the failings of the southern justice system and the iniquities of the Jim Crow culture were under new scrutiny, spearheaded by the ascending civil rights movement.
A brief reference to the Ingram case, and indeed, to the illustration on the book’s cover, appeared on page 8 of Anticommunism and the African American Freedom Movement…. White’s illustration depicted three African Americans—we read them as being Rosa Lee Ingram and her two sons—behind bars, earnestly seeking justice and for their liberty to be restored.”
“Swann Auctions is the route through which a number of Charles White’s works are brought to the marketplace. The catalogues that accompany these auctions are always a treasure trove of high quality reproductions of work by African American artists, together with descriptions of varying lengths, biographical information, and guide prices. The Swann African-American Fine Art catalogue of February 17, 2009 offered for auction several works by Charles White, including the iconic Move On Up a Little Higher, 1961, Charcoal and Wolff crayon on illustration board, 1004 x 1205 mm; signed and dated in charcoal, lower right. Accompanying text as follows:
‘Move On Up a Little Higher is a most impressive example of the artist’s mid-career work, a masterful large-scale drawing that conveys all the emotional and figurative realism one associates with White. ...The title refers to the gospel song of Mahalia Jackson whose 1948 recording made her famous.’
Befitting such a monumental work, it was rendered as a gatefold. Additionally, the last of the four pages devoted to the work in the Swann catalogue featured a detail, of the face of the woman who was the subject of the drawing, her arms held aloft in a celestial vision.
Also offered for sale in this auction catalogue were the Charles White works, Untitled (Head of a Man), etching, circa 1940; Mayor Tom Bradley, lithograph, 1974; Frederick Douglass, etching, 1973; Profile, etching, 1974; and Study for Lead Belly, graphite and charcoal on vellum paper, circa 1978.”
“[This is a] 44 page softcover catalogue, bound in stiff black paper covers and published on the occasion of the exhibition, Charles White: Let the Light Enter held at the Michael Rosenfeld Gallery, New York, January 10 - March 7, 2009. Including the cover illustration, the publication contained 10 drawings, beautifully reproduced - 3 in foldout pages. A taped interview with the artist is transcribed, along with an appreciative essay. Contents as follows:
- LET THE LIGHT ENTER—poem by Frances E.W. Harper
- AN INTERVIEW WITH CHARLES WHITE—transcribed conversation, broadcast on radio in the late 1960s, between Charles White and a now unidentified broadcaster
- A SELECTION OF DRAWINGS, 1942 - 1970
- CHARLES WHITE (1918 - 1979)—Biographical outline of the artist, taken from Andrea D. Barnwell’s Charles White (The David C. Driskell Series of African American Art: Volume I, San Francisco: Pomegranate, 2002). The reference to Barnwell was followed by: Betty Lochrie Hoag, ‘Oral history interview with Charles Wilbert White, 1965, Mar. 9,’ Smithsonian Archives of American Art. A web address followed, with a note that the site had been accessed by the writer November 21
- CHARLES WHITE CV
- FRANCES ELLEN WATKINS HARPER (1825 - 1911)—uncredited biographical outline of the poet
MICHAEL ROSENFELD GALLERY PUBLICATIONS”
“Charles White’s Walk Together, Charcoal, 1953-54 was used on the cover of Mary Helen Washington’s The Other Blacklist: The African American Literary and Cultural Left of the 1950s (Columbia University Press, 2014}. (On the flyleaf of The Other Blacklist, the work’s title was written as Let's Walk Together).
The book concerned itself with recovering ‘the vital role of 1950s leftist politics in the works and lives of modern African American writers and artists. While most histories of McCarthyism focus on the devastation of the blacklist and the intersection of leftist politics and American culture, few include the activities of radical writers and artists from the Black Popular Front. Washington’s work incorporates these black intellectuals back into our understanding of mid-twentieth-century African American literature and art and expands our understanding of the creative ferment energizing all of America during this period.’
This text, on the flyleaf of the book’s jacket, continued, ‘Mary Helen Washington reads four representative writers—Lloyd Brown, Frank London Brown, Alice Childress, and Gwendolyn Brooks—and surveys the work of the visual artist Charles White. She traces resonances of leftist ideas and activism in their artistic achievements and follows their balanced critique of the mainstream liberal and conservative political and literary spheres. Her study recounts the targeting of African American as well as white writers during the McCarthy era, reconstructs the events of the 1959 Black Writers’ Conference in New York, and argues for the ongoing influence of the Black Popular Front decades after it folded. Defining the contours of a distinctly black modernism and its far-ranging radicalization of American politics and culture, Washington fundamentally reorients scholarship on African American and Cold War literature and life.’
This was an important work of scholarship, that took its place alongside Andrew Hemingway’s Artists on the Left: American Artists and the Communist Movement, 1926-1956 (Yale University Press, 2002), both books chronicling and examining Charles White’s left-leaning impulses and his art work that reflected these impulses.”
“In 2017, Museum of Modern Art, New York, published Charles White: Black Pope. Written by Esther Adler, the 72-page book took as its starting point a renewed consideration of one of Charles White’s works in the collection of MoMA—Black Pope (Sandwich Board Man) (1973).
From the rear of the book jacket: ‘The Chicago-born artist Charles White (1918–79) was celebrated during his lifetime for depictions of African-Americans that acquired the description “images of dignity.” His application of his extraordinary draftsmanship to address a lifetime of social and political concerns made him a vital influence on both his contemporaries and later generations; visually compelling and intellectually ambitious, his art engages audiences on many levels. Beginning with his early days in Chicago, moving through his time in New York in the late 1940s and ‘50s, and closing with his final decades as a revered artist and teacher in Los Angeles, Charles White: Black Pope offers a detailed exploration of his practice, focusing in particular on his late masterwork Black Pope (Sandwich Board Man), in the collection of The Museum of Modern Art.’
Though a more substantial monograph on White was to follow, Charles White: Black Pope, was an important and considerable introduction to White’s practice, which sought to place his work in a variety of art and visual culture contexts. The book contained important archival photographs and other material, including that which pointed to the source of inspiration for the figure that was the subject of White’s intriguing ‘masterwork,’ Black Pope.”
“Truth and Beauty: Charles White and His Circle was a very attractive catalogue, accompanying an exhibition of the same name at New York City’s Michael Rosenfeld Gallery. The exhibition was scheduled to coincide with the Museum of Modern Art’s showing of the major Charles White Retrospective that was first see at the Art Institute of Chicago. Alongside a number of early and rarely seen works by White, Truth and Beauty: Charles White and His Circle featured work by the following artists:
- Benny Andrews (1930-2006)
- Richmond Barthé (1901-1989)
- Romare Bearden (1911-1988)
- John Biggers (1924-2000)
- Eldzier Cortor (1916-2015)
- Ernest Crichlow (1914-2005)
- Philip Evergood (1901-1973)
- William Gropper (1897-1977)
- Robert Gwathmey (1903-1988)
- David Hammons (b.1943)
- Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000)
- Norman Lewis (1909-1979)
- Kerry James Marshall (b. 1955)
- Archibald J. Motley, Jr. (1891-1981)
- John Outterbridge (b. 1933)
- Gordon Parks (1912-2006)
- Marion Perkins (1908-1961)
- Betye Saar (b.1926)
- Charles Sebree (1914-1985)
- Ben Shahn (1898-1969)
- Raphael Soyer (1894-1986)
- Harry Sternberg (1904-2001)
- Hale Woodruff (1900-1980)
Extensively illustrated, and with its high production values, Truth and Beauty: Charles White and His Circle was a beautiful catalogue.
Contents as follows:
- FOREWORD, halley k harrisburg (sic) and Michael Rosenfeld, Michael Rosenfeld Gallery
- PATH OF A NEGRO ARTIST, BY CHARLES WHITE, Excerpted from Masses & Mainstream, April 1955
- THE WORK OF CHARLES WHITE (nearly 20 plates, one per page)
- ABOUT CHARLES WHITE (1918 – 1979), uncredited biographical essay.
- SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
- Followed by a section, ‘& HIS CIRCLE’, reflections and appreciations by several of the 25 artists listed above.
- FREEDOMWAYS, CHARLES WHITE, Art and Soul, 1980 – a brief introduction to the Freedomways This section of Truth and Beauty: Charles White and His Circle reproduced several texts from the special commemorative issue of Freedomways. The tributes to White were as follows:
“CHARLES WHITE WAS A DRAWER,” Benny Andrews
“HIS INFLUENCE CAUSED ME TO TURN OUT LITTLE CHARLES WHITES,” John Biggers
“HE WAS AT HOME CREATIVELY IN ANY LOCALE,” Eldzier Cortor
“TO OUR COLLEAGUE”, Romare Bearden, Ernest Crichlow, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, Hale Woodruff
- THE WORK OF HIS CIRCLE – plates of work by each of the 25 artists listed above
- Section titled Truth and Beauty: Charles White and His Circle
- CHARLES WHITE – CHECKLIST OF THE EXHIBITION
- AND HIS CIRCLE – CHECKLIST OF THE EXHIBITION
- MICHAEL ROSENFELD GALLERY – EXHIBITION HISTORY (December 1989 – November 9 2019, 5 pages of exhibitions
- CREDITS
With its cover bearing an individually adhered plate of I BEEN REBUKED AND I BEEN SCORNED (SOLID AS A ROCK), 1954, this publication was a most handsome and useful document on Charles White.”
“Charles White’s last retrospective exhibitions had taken place several decades ago, both before and following his death in 1979. These retrospectives came with important, though relatively modest catalogues. Towering over these exhibitions from several decades ago, and towering over their attendant catalogues, was Charles White: A Retrospective, the first major museum survey devoted to the artist in well over 30 years. The exhibition charted the breadth of Charles White’s career—from the 1930s through to works completed before his death in 1979. Featuring in excess of 100 works, including drawings, paintings, prints, photographs, illustrated books, record covers and archival materials, this was by far the most extensive, well-resourced exhibition of the artist’s work ever to take place. Fittingly, it travelled to prominent galleries in the three US cities with which White was associated. Opening at the Art Institute of Chicago, the exhibition travelled to the Museum of Modern Art, New York, finishing its tour at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. This was a weighty, profusely illustrated catalogue, coming as it did with important texts by leading scholars and well-known names.
From the flyleaf:
CHARLES WHITE
A RETROSPECTIVE
Edited by Sarah Kelly Oehler and Esther Adler
With essays by Esther Adler, Ilene Susan Fort, Kellie Jones, Sarah Kelly Oehler, Mark Pascale, and Deborah Willis and a preface by Kerry James Marshall
Charles White (1918 - 1979) is best known for bold, large-scale paintings and drawings of African Americans, meticulously executed works that depict human relationships and socio-economic struggles with a remarkable sensitivity. This comprehensive study offers a much-needed reexamination of the artist’s career and legacy. With handsome reproductions of White’s finest paintings, drawings and prints, the volume introduces his work to contemporary audiences, places him in the art historical narrative, and stresses the continuing relevance of his insistent dedication to producing positive social change through art.
Tracing White’s career from his emergence in Chicago to his mature practice as an artist, activist and educator in New York and Los Angeles, leading experts provide insights into his creative process, his work as a photographer, his political activism and interest in history, the relationships between his art and his teaching, and the importance of feminism in his work. A preface by Kerry James Marshall honors White’s significance as a mentor to an entire generation of practitioners.
Published by the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and distributed by Yale University Press, the publication’s contents were as follows:
- Page of exhibition details, catalogue production details, et cetera
- Foreword, James Rondeau and Glenn D. Lowry
- Acknowledgements, Sarah Kelly Oehler and Esther Adler
- “A Black Artist Named White,” Kerry James Marshall
- “Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow: Charles White’s Murals and History as Art,” Sarah Kelly Oehler
- “Graphic Interpreter of the Black People: Charles White as Draftsman and Printmaker,” Mark Pascale
- Plates: Chicago and War Years
- “Charles White: Feminist at Mid-Century,” Kellie Jones
- “In Search of Beauty: Charles White’s Exposures,” Deborah Willis
- Plates: New York
- “Charles White’s Art and Activism in Southern California,” Ilene Susan Fort
- “Charles White, Artist and Teacher,” Esther Adler
- Plates: Los Angeles
- Chronology, Compiled by John Murphy and Ashley James
- Selected Inventory of Charles White’s Library, Compiled by Ashley James
- Selected Exhibition History, Compiled by John Murphy and Stacy Kammert
- Checklist of the Exhibition
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
- Photography Credits”
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