Charles White

Charles White (1918–1979) was an African American painter, printmaker, and teacher who created powerful images of African American life from the 1930s through the 1970s. White himself described his work as “images of dignity”—a theme that was unwavering over the course of his four-decade career. White believed that art had a role to play in changing the world: “Art must be an integral part of the struggle. It can’t simply mirror what’s taking place. It must adapt itself to human needs. It must ally itself with the forces of liberation. The fact is, artists have always been propagandists. I have no use for artists who try to divorce themselves from the struggle.” After high school White received a scholarship to attend the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1938 he joined the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as an easel painter and went on to create a mural of five notable African Americans for the Chicago Public Library. Between 1942 and 1943 he received a Julius Rosenwald Fellowship to study at the Art Students League in New York City, which culminated in his painting a mural about African American history at Hampton Institute in Hampton, Virginia. After serving in World War II in 1944 as a camouflage artist, he settled in New York City. He settled in Southern California in 1957, where he taught at the Otis Art Institute from 1965 until his death in 1979. https://americanart.si.edu/education/oh-freedom/charles-white ; https://www.moma.org/artists/6339