Charles White: Selected Works

In conjunction with Charles White: Monumental Practice, the gallery is pleased to present a selection of the artist’s paintings and drawings, dating from the 1930s through the 1950s, a significant period for the development of his social realist aesthetic. These works demonstrate White’s unwavering commitment to realism and thus underscore the central values of his practice. "To him," as Kellie Jones notes, realism "presented an art language that was understandable worldwide. Above all, the ‘communicability’ of the representational was key, ‘how it reflects the great experience of life and singles out that which is most significant and meaningful to its process’; these are portrayals of the subtle and daily human struggles for peace and freedom."¹

¹ Kellie Jones, South of Pico: African American Artists in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s (Durham: Duke University Press, 2017), pp. 31–32.

Image: Installation view, Charles White: Selected Works, David Zwirner, New York, 2019