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CHARLES WHITE (1918 -1979)
Work.
Wolff crayon and charcoal on illustration board, 1953. 1118x711 mm; 44x28 inches. Signed and
dated in crayon, lower left.
Provenance: Cye Reiss, Beverly Hills, CA; Heritage Gallery, Los Angeles, with the label on the frame
back; Russell D. Martin, M.D., Claremont, CA; thence by descent to the current owners.
Illustrated: Benjamin Horowitz,
Images of Dignity: The Drawings of Charles White
, p. 55; Sidney
Finkelstein,
CharlesWhite: Ein Künstler Amerikas
, pl. 33; Louie Robinson, “Charles White: Portrayer
of Black Dignity,”
Ebony Magazine
,Vol. 22, No. 9, July, 1967, p. 26;
Negro Digest
, June, 1967, cover.
Charles White created
Work
at the height of his NewYork career. This exceptional drawing is an
excellent example of how, in the early 1950s,White gave a new beauty and dignity to his Social
Realist subjects. Previously,White had used a more angular and stylized figuration that reflected his
experience in the WPA and the influence of Mexican muralists. By the 1950s, White depicted
working men and women on a grand scale, with an intensity of mark making and an attention to
natural gestures that made his subjects into heroic figures.
Work
is the first large scale drawing fromWhite’s important 1950s period to come to auction. In
1953,ACA Gallery in NewYork gave CharlesWhite a solo exhibition of 15 paintings and drawings
that cemented his growing international career and reputation. The year before, the Whitney
Museum of American Art acquired the pen and ink drawing
The Preacher
. In particular, drawings
from 1953 are often used as examples to represent his ouevre—including the Art Institute of
Chicago’s
Harvest Talk
and
Ye Shall Inherit the Earth
, the cover of Andrea D. Barnwell’s monograph,
CharlesWhite
. Gedeon D79.
[200,000/250,000]