[The introduction to this series of posts is here.]
Art reconciles the conceptual and the sensible* and makes connections between ideas and world that are difficult to make otherwise. It reconciles aspects of experience that are rarely considered together. — Enrique Martinez Celaya
* I suspect “sensible” is here being used in two senses: as in “perceptible by the senses” (from the Latin sensibilis), as well as in its later and more common sense, as in having good judgment or “good sense.”
“After his passing in 1979, Charles White’s reputation as an artist continued to increase, garnering more and more adulation. To this end, one of the first substantial posthumous overviews of his work was Images of Dignity: A Retrospective of the Works of Charles White. The exhibition was held at the Studio Museum in Harlem, June 20 - August 31, 1982. The exhibition’s title had, in large part, been borrowed from the celebrated monograph, published in several editions by Ward Ritchie Press (Los Angeles, 1967).
From the Foreword, by Dr. Mary Schmidt Campbell, Executive Director of the Studio Museum in Harlem:
‘Charles White was an artist who cared about his people and his art. His images—epic in their depiction of Black life, masterful in technique—were always accessible to his audience, always communal. The Studio Museum in Harlem has assembled White’s oils, temperas, watercolors, drawings and prints for the exhibition, Images of Dignity: A Retrospective of the Works of Charles White. The third in Studio Museum’s Black Masters’ Series, the exhibition clearly demonstrates White’s ability to portray, in his words, “love, hope, courage, freedom, dignity—the full gamut of the human spirit,” and to portray those highly abstract qualities within the very specific context of Black people, “their history, their culture, their struggle to survive.”’ Schmidt Campbell’s Foreword continued, ‘Divided into three sections—from the WPA to the Taller de Grafica (1935 to 1947); the transition to an African-inspired realism (1950 to 1963), and his mature works executed in the language of myth (1963 to 1979)—the exhibition traces the evolution of White’s increasingly complex use of graphic mediums as well as his increasingly subtle treatment of the human figure.’
The catalogue’s most substantial text was ‘Charles White: A Critical Perspective,’ by Dr. Peter Clothier.
Full catalogue contents as follows:
Foreword—Dr. Mary Schmidt Campbell
Lenders to the Exhibition
Charles White: A Critical Perspective—Dr. Peter Clothier
Bibliography—Earnest Kaiser and Benjamin Horowitz
Chronology — Kellie Jones
Catalogue of the Exhibition
Images of Dignity: A Retrospective of the Works of Charles White carried on its cover a reproduction of The Prophet, 1975-1976, 27" x 36.5". (At the time of its making, The Prophet had marked a new departure for White, in that it was a move away from the weighty social realism of his monochrome drawings.) It was extensively illustrated, with both monochrome and colour reproductions of White’s work.”
“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 1984 publication, Michael G. Cooke, Afro-American Literature in the Twentieth Century: The achievement of Intimacy, published by Yale University Press. From the book’s jacket flaps:
‘Where modernism in Anglo-American literature wears the guise of an artificial detachment from the human, in Afro-American literature it has taken a different tack: a grappling with a sense of intimacy that involves reaching out of the self into an unguarded, uncircumscribed engagement of the world. Intimacy is an experiment laden with psychocultural risk, and that is why it has been overladen by those with the least to lose in conventional terms—America’s black writers.’
From this persuasive and original perspective, Michael Cooke examines the essential structure of Afro-American literature in the 20th century. He shows a development out of the secret matrix of ‘signifying’ and the blues into successive conditions of self-veiling, solitude, kinship, and, finally, a lucid, capable state of intimacy. Among the individual writers who receive special attention are Jean Toomer, Nella Larsen, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Eldridge Cleaver, Robert Hayden, Alice Walker, and James Baldwin. In addition to locating these authors in the progression toward intimacy, Cooke analyzes their work in terms of metamorphosis, materialism, suicide, magic, the interplay of identity and ‘voice,’ and the Afro-American posture toward history. In a final chapter, he discusses the most recent black fiction, demonstrating that it sustains the dynamism and creativity of its rich and centripetal tradition.
The jacket illustration is Charles White’s The Prophet # 1.”
“This was for many years the defining publication on Charles White, published in several editions by Ward Ritchie Press (Los Angeles, 1967): 121, with 95 black & white illus. Designed by Joseph Simon, Images of Dignity was the very first monograph on Charles White. Published in conjunction with White’s longtime dealer Benjamin Horowitz’s Heritage Gallery, it presents a comprehensive survey of over forty years of the artist’s moving works on paper, the African American image and experience located at the heart of these wonderful works.
A measure of the significance and importance of Images of Dignity was alluded to in a text on White published in Ebony magazine. A major eight page feature on the artist, written by Louie Robinson, stated, ‘The publication of [White’s] Images of Dignity alone is a singular achievement. No other living Negro artist has ever had a book of his works published (a collection of the art of the late Horace Pippin appeared in print after his death).’
With a chronology, exhibition history and bibliography, this was, until at least the time of his death, the go-to publication on Charles White. The book’s contents:
- Foreword, by Harry Belafonte
- An Appreciation, by James Porter
- Images of Dignity, by Benjamin Horowitz
- The Drawings of Charles White—88 pages of White’s work, arranged chronologically, the earliest dating from 1925, the most recent works being a number of White’s J'Accuse! A measure of just how talented White was can be ascertained from the first reproduction, executed by White when he just 7 years old. The landscape, featuring a cabin, set in a forest clearing, with mountains in the background was truly a remarkably accomplished ink drawing.
- Artist’s CV.
That James Porter should write an appreciation is highly significant. Porter had been responsible for the first substantial study on African-American art, Modern Negro Art, published until 1943. From Porter’s appreciation: ‘I like to think of Charles White not just as an artist—not even as an American artist—but as an artist who, more than any other, has found a way of embodying in his art the very texture of Negro experience as found in life in America. Recognizing and seizing upon that which is unique as well as that which is general or universal about the Negro people, he has, as Mr. Belafonte has remarked, spoken in “the poetic beauty of Negro idiom.” In any case, White has made of his own artistic language a splendid vehicle for that idiom. Charles is an artist steeped in life; and his informed artistic vision conduces to an understanding of vivid pictorial symbols which, though large as life itself, are altogether free of false or distorted ideas or shallow and dubious emotion.’
Likewise, it was no surprise that Harry Belafonte should write a foreword for Images of Dignity, as Harry Belafonte and Charles White maintained a longstanding friendship over many years and the singer/civil rights activist owned one of White’s signature works, a depiction of a singing guitarist. Belafonte had owned the work since at least as early as the mid-1950s, and it appeared in the background of a portrait of the singer and his wife, Julie Robinson, used on the cover of Ebony magazine, July 1957. White had provided illustrations for several publications on Belafonte, so this foreword by Belafonte was no surprise. Wrote Belafonte, ‘His portraits are real, but, like some of Sean O’Casey’s dramas, they are oftentimes much bigger than life, as if the artist is saying to us, “Life is much more than this. Life is big and broad and deep.”’ Belafonte’s respect for White was re-inscribed, in 2001, when White’s work (owned by Belafonte) was used on the cover of The Long Road to Freedom: An Anthology of Black Music, an extraordinary, ambitious box set that was Belafonte’s brainchild and labour of love.
The cover of Images of Dignity featured White’s Two Brothers Have I had on Earth—One of Spirit, One of Sod (charcoal), 1965, a distinguished work made all the more so by being in the collection of Premier Sekou Toure of Guinea. The rear flyleaf of the book’s jacket contained several extracts from glowing reviews written by the several reviewers, included Arthur Miller, whose review of Images of Dignity had appeared in Los Angeles Herald Examiner.”
“Charles White: Drawings was an exhibition that was held at the art galleries of three historically Black colleges and universities:
Inaugural exhibition
The Gallery of Art
College of Fine Arts, Howard University
September 22 - October 25, 1967
(James A. Porter, Director, Gallery of Art)
Second exhibition
The Carl Murray Fine Arts Center
Morgan State College, Baltimore, MD
November 1 - November 24, 1967
(James E. Lewis, Director of Art Gallery)
Third exhibition
The Art Gallery
Ballentine Hall, Fisk University
Nashville, TN
(David C. Driskell, Director of Art Gallery)
The above itinerary appeared on the first page of the catalogue. This catalogue carried on its cover (beneath a reproduction of White’s J'Accuse! No. 2, 1966) a reference to the third venue:
The Gallery of Art (sic)
Ballentine Hall, Fisk University
It’s not clear if the Inaugural and second venues came with their own catalogues. It is also not clear if this catalogue was published before or after the publication of Images of Dignity, first published by Ward Ritchie Press (Los Angeles, 1967). Both Charles White: Drawings and Charles White: Images of Dignity contained ‘An Appreciation,’ by James Porter and ‘Images of Dignity,’ by Benjamin Horowitz. Both texts were similar in content (though not in length). In addition to his ‘Appreciation.’ Porter also penned a ‘Foreword’ for Charles White: Drawings. From the ‘Foreword’:
‘During all of the present century as well as for a part of the Nineteenth century, the role of American colleges and universities in the conservation and interpretation of art has been both active and purposeful. In recent years, however—notably—during the past thirty years, many American universities through their art departments have also demonstrated concern with the training of artists and, in particular, with the encouragement of experimentation in art at a high professional level. In 1945, Charles White was at Howard University as artist-in-residence, undoubtedly, one among the first American artists to be thus employed on a university campus. And it is safe to say, that through such brief associations with the art program at Howard, Charles White’s art became more fully known to an interested Washington public.’ [….]
From Horowitz’s text in Charles White: Drawings:
‘In an era when the artist is expressing his detachment from the human condition by a ‘cool’ and geometric style, Charles White’s superb drawings challenge this lack of faith and self-involvement. Their epic quality affirms his deep concern for humanity, his love of man and life, and his belief that brotherhood is not just a catchword. Here, on his canvasses, the vitality and poignancy of humankind are captured for the eye to see and the heart to feel.
... But while insistence on the dignity of the individual and respect for the human being is a universal quality of his art, White is deeply and spiritually a product of his race and environment. A bare 100 years ago his grandfather was a slave in Mississippi, and his mother lived most of her life in the South where little had changed from her father’s day.
... There are many collectors of Charles White’s work whose admiration for him is boundless. Here is an art, they say, that has grown out of the gritty seams of life, out of the anger of the dispossessed, out of the dregs of despair. Here is an art, they say, that makes you catch your breath at the strength of life, its beauty, its love. Here is an art that mirrors man’s hopes, warms his blood, and makes his heart sing. Here, they say, is a man who is a great artist—an artist who is a great man.’
The catalogue contained an abbreviated CV, a list of works in the exhibition (including ten works from White’s J'Accuse! series), and a list of lenders to the exhibition.”
“What turned out to be one of the last major museum exhibitions of Charles White’s work was The Work of Charles White: An American Experience, held at the High Museum, Atlanta, Georgia (September 4 - October 3, 1976), before touring on to Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery, Alabama (October 23 - December 5, 1976), Hunter Museum of Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee (February 17 - March 31, 1977), Art Museum of the Palm Beaches, Inc., West Palm Beach, Florida (April 22 - May 29, 1997), ending its Southern states tour at Arkansas Arts Center, Little Rock, Arkansas. The exhibition was documented with this small, but very useful catalogue, [adorned] with Charles White’s circular ‘Vision’ oil drawing, 1968, 20" diameter.
This particular catalogue, somewhat curiously, had references to Dr. and Mrs. Richard A. Simms, roughly redacted from the list of Lenders to the Exhibition, and from four works in ‘Catalogue’ section of the publication. (Los Angeles-based Simms was a noted art collector). There were thirteen monochromatic reproductions in the publication, punctuated by modestly sized pieces of writing, the most substantial of which was a one-page Introduction by Edmund Barry Gaither, Director/Curator, Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists.”
“In 1994, Barricade Books published Reaches of the Heart: A Loving Look at the Artist Charles White, written by Frances Barrett White with Ann Scott. This was a personal account of the 29-year marriage between Charles White and Frances Barrett White, his white, social worker wife, and of their family life with two adopted children.
From the book’s flyleaf:
‘Charles White was one of the most distinguished and best known artists of the twentieth century. In 1950 he fell in love and married Frances Barrett, the daughter of a Catholic priest. They had no honeymoon because they were not, under the laws of the state of Michigan, allowed to share a hotel room. Charlie was black and Fran was white. Reaches of the Heart is a very personal story of a marriage between two people of different races who loved each other enough to have a world not quite ready for such a union. In another sense, it is a record of those decades in America that affected not only Charles and Frances, but all people, black and white, who fought for dignity and progress in the crucible of contemporary life. And it is also the story of an accomplished artist whose work is collected by museums and notable private collectors like Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte. Reaches of the Heart is a moving account of a marriage and a career, but it is also an invaluable record of the times and of lessons learned that must not be forgotten.’
Reaches of the Heart: A Loving Look at the Artist Charles White contains a fascinating selection of photographs. The cover featured White’s Wanted Poster Series #17, 1971.
Frances Barrett White was born September 30, 1926, and passed away September 25, 2000.”
“In 1996 Cambridge University Press published Harriet Jacobs and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: New Critical Essays, a title in the Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture. This anthology presented a far-ranging compendium of literary and cultural scholarship on Harriet Jacob’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Edited by Deborah M. Garfield and Rafia Zafar, the volume’s contributors included both established Jacobs scholars and emerging critics, their essays taking on a variety of subjects in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, treating representation, gender, resistance, and spirituality from differing angles, in the book’s 306 pages.
Charles White’s Wanted Poster Series #17 was reproduced on the cover of Harriet Jacobs and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: New Critical Essays.”
“Charles White: American Draftsman was the title of an exhibition of Charles White’s work, held at the North Carolina Central University Art Museum, Durham, North Carolina (August 22 - October 15, 1999). The exhibition was supported and documented by this handsome publication, the cover of which was graced by a reproduction of Charles White’s Wanted Poster Series #6. A selection of more than 30 reproductions of White’s work, in both monochrome and colour, were featured in the catalogue, the contents of which are as follows:
- Uncredited photograph of Charles White at the Heritage Gallery, 1978
- Acknowledgement
- Introduction - Kenneth G. Rodgers
- Charles White: American Draftsman—text by Kenneth G. Rodgers
- Endnotes for Rodgers’ text
- Chronology of Charles White
- Plates
- Exhibition checklist
The main text by Rodgers, NCCU Art Museum Director, was a substantial reflection on White’s practice, and covered 8 pages of the catalogue.”
“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.”
[….] “In 2002 Pomegranate Publications published its first installment 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. Extensively illustrated, the flyleaf of the publication contained the following text:
‘As the debut volume in the highly anticipated David C. Driskell series of African American Art, Charles White sets a remarkable standard for the volumes to follow. Filled with drawings and paintings—many of which have never been published before—and scholarly text by Andrea D. Barnwell, this monograph encapsulates the spirit, vision, and extraordinary brilliance of White’s powerful art.’
Charles White (1918 - 1979) intentionally and unapologetically dedicated his life and work to conveying the concerns, sentiments, and beauty of African Americans, always realistically portraying his subjects with the dignity they so richly deserved but were so often denied. Through universal themes he interpreted and presented the humanitarian and social issues of his time by examining the heroism, struggles, hopes, histories, and triumphs of black people.
Barnwell discusses White’s regard as an artist and chronicles his career as he pursued artistic excellence, personal integrity, economic freedom, and racial equality. White’s works are in the collections of major museums, including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Hampton University Museum, Hampton, Virginia; the Howard University of Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Art Institute of Chicago; many are in private collections in the United States, Europe, and Africa.
One of the greatest American artists of the 20th century, Charles White and his place in the annals of art history has not been adequately examined. Charles White (The David C. Driskell Series of African American Art: Volume 1) is an important step in ensuring the legacy of this seminal artist and singular man.
David C. Driskell, retired as distinguished University Professor of Art Emeritus from the University of Maryland, where he taught for twenty-two years, is a painter and the author of several essays and books. His own paintings are in many public and private collections throughout the world. A noted curator, scholar, and lecturer, Driskell is also a collector of art; an exhibition of his personal collection has toured museums in the United States.
Andrea D. Barnwell, an art historian, writer, and critic, is the Director of the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art. Her primary research interests are African American, Black British, and Contemporary African art. Her writings have been featured in major publications, including To Conserve a Legacy: American Art from Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Rhapsodies in Black: The Art of the Harlem Renaissance, and African Americans in Art: Selections from The Art Institute of Chicago. In 1990 she organized and was the principal author of The Walter O. Evans Collection of African American Art. Her critical writings have appeared in numerous journals, such as the International Review of African American Art, African Arts, and NKA: Journal of Contemporary African Art. She is the recipient of numerous academic and scholarly awards, including a MacArthur Curatorial Fellowship in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Art Institute of Chicago. Barnwell, an alumna of Spelman College, completed her master’s and doctoral degrees in art history from Duke University.
The book’s contents are as follows:
- Foreword, by David C. Driskell
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Chapter One—Chicago: The Early Years
- Chapter Two—From New York to Los Angeles
- Chapter Three—At Home in California
- Charles White Chronology
- Index
From the Foreword:
‘... [P]aramount in White’s search for art that was solid and permanent, art informing both himself and his public, was the seriousness with which he engaged in making art and showing its relevance to the human condition. This led him to anchor most of his works in patterns of realism. In realism he could pursue the narrative and avoid the untested ways of emerging modernism. While White never fully embraced the tenets of modernism, he did experiment with a modified form of cubism, moving his work in and out of a style uniquely adaptable to geometric abstraction. He needed neither tricks of the craft nor whimsical art formulas to articulate his consummate vision, the vision of the insider. During nearly five decades, works such as Native Son, The Worker, Preacher, and Woman Worker, all carefully crafted in style and form, revealed the heart and soul of his creativity in one of the strongest figural traditions in American Art.’
The book’s cover image was Ye Shall Inherit the Earth, 1953 (charcoal on paper, 39 x 26 in.) Courtesy ACA Galleries, New York.”
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