Charles Alston

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
This article is about the American painter. For other people of the same name, see Charles Alston (disambiguation).

Charles Alston
Muralism, painting, illustration, sculpture
MovementAbstract expressionism
SpouseMyra Adele Logan
Patron(s)Lemoine Deleaver Pierce

Charles Henry Alston (November 28, 1907 – April 27, 1977) was an American painter, sculptor, illustrator,

Harlem Hospital and the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Building. In 1990, Alston's bust of Martin Luther King Jr. became the first image of an African American displayed at the White House
.

Personal life

Early life

Charles Henry Alston was born on November 28, 1907, in

cerebral hemorrhage. Locals described his father as the "Booker T. Washington of Charlotte".[1][3]

In 1913, Anna Alston married Harry Bearden, Romare Bearden's uncle, making Charles and Romare cousins. The two Bearden families lived across the street from each other; the friendship between Romare and Charles would last a lifetime.[1][3][4]

As a child, Alston was inspired by his older brother Wendell's drawings of trains and cars, which the young artist copied.[1][5] Alston also played with clay, creating a sculpture of North Carolina. As an adult he reflected on his memories of sculpting with clay as a child: "I'd get buckets of it and put it through strainers and make things out of it. I think that's the first art experience I remember, making things."[1] His mother was a skilled embroiderer and took up painting at the age of 75. His father was also good at drawing, having wooed Alston's mother Anna with small sketches in the medians of letters he wrote her.[1][3]

In 1915, the Bearden/Alston family moved to New York, as many African-American families did during the

Bretton Hotel in the Upper West Side. The family lived in Harlem and was considered middle-class. During the Great Depression, the people of Harlem suffered economically. The "stoic strength" seen within the community was later expressed in Charles’ fine art.[1] At Public School 179 in Manhattan, the boy's artistic abilities were recognized and he was asked to draw all of the school posters during his years there.[3]

In 1917, Harry and Anna Bearden had a daughter together, Aida C. Bearden, who would later marry operatic baritone

Lawrence Whisonant
.

Higher education

Alston graduated from

Yale School of Fine Arts.[1][2][3][5]

Pvt. Alston with his art student and cousin, Romare Bearden (right), discussing one of his paintings, Cotton Workers, in 1944. Both were members of the 372nd Infantry Regiment stationed in New York City.

Alston entered the pre-architectural program but lost interest after realizing what difficulties many African-American architects had in the field. After also taking classes in

pre-med, he decided that math, physics and chemistry "was not just my bag", and he entered the fine arts program. During his time at Columbia, Alston joined Alpha Phi Alpha, worked on the university's Columbia Daily Spectator, and drew cartoons for the school's magazine Jester.[1][3] He also explored Harlem restaurants and clubs, where his love for jazz and black music would be fostered. In 1929, he graduated and received the Arthur Wesley Dow fellowship to study at Teachers College, where he obtained his Master's in 1931.[1][3][7][8]

Later life

For the years 1942 and 1943 Alston was stationed in the army at Fort Huachuca in Arizona. While working on a mural project at Harlem Hospital, he met Myra Adele Logan, then an surgical intern at the hospital. They were married on April 8, 1944. Their home, which included his studio, was on Edgecombe Avenue near Highbridge Park. The couple lived close to family; at their frequent gatherings Alston enjoyed cooking and Myra played piano. During the 1940s Alston also took occasional art classes, studying under Alexander Kostellow.

On April 27, 1977, Alston died after a long bout with cancer, just months after his wife died from lung cancer.[1][3][9] His memorial service was held at St. Martins Episcopal Church in New York City, on May 21, 1977.[10]

Professional career

Alston's illustration of African-American historian Carter G. Woodson for the Office of War Information

While obtaining his master's degree, Alston was the boys’ work director at the Utopia Children's House, started by

Alain Locke.[1][3][5][6] In the late 1920s, Alston joined Bearden and other black artists who refused to exhibit in William E. Harmon Foundation shows, which featured all-black artists in their traveling exhibits. Alston and his friends thought the exhibits were curated for a white audience, a form of segregation which the men protested. They did not want to be set aside but exhibited on the same level as art peers of every skin color.[3]

In 1938, the

Atlanta University.[1]

During the 1930s and early 1940s, Alston created illustrations for magazines such as

black newspapers across the country by the government to "foster goodwill with the black citizenry."[6][14]

Alston left commercial work to focus on his own artwork, and 1950 he became the first African-American instructor at the

Art Students League, where he remained on faculty until 1971.[1][2][6] In 1950, his Painting was exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and his artwork was one of the few pieces purchased by the museum.[6] He landed his first solo exhibition in 1953 at the John Heller Gallery, which represented artists such as Roy Lichtenstein
. He exhibited there five times from 1953 to 1958.

In 1956, Alston became the first African-American instructor at the Museum of Modern Art, where he taught for a year before going to Belgium on behalf of MoMA and the United States Department of State. He coordinated the children's community center at Expo 58. In 1958, he was awarded a grant from and was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.[1][2][3]

In 1963, Alston co-founded Spiral with his cousin Romare Bearden and Hale Woodruff.[1][2][3][6] Spiral served as a collective of conversation and artistic exploration for a large group of artists who "addressed how black artists should relate to American society in a time of segregation." Artists and arts supporters gathered for Spiral, such as Emma Amos, Perry Ferguson and Merton Simpson.[1][5] [15] This group served as the 1960s version of the 306 Group. Alston was described as an "intellectual activist", and in 1968 he spoke at Columbia about his activism. In the mid-1960s, Spiral organized an exhibition of black and white artworks, but the exhibition was never officially sponsored by the group, due to internal disagreements.[1]

In 1968, Alston received a presidential appointment from

New York City Art Commission in 1969.[6]

In 1973, he was made full professor at City College of New York, where he had taught since 1968.[1][2] In 1975, he was awarded the first Distinguished Alumni Award from Teachers College.[1] The Art Student's League created a 21-year merit scholarship in 1977 under Alston's name to commemorate each year of his tenure.[3]

Painting a person and a culture

Alston shared studio space with Henry Bannarn at 306 W. 141st Street, which served as an open space for artists, photographers, musicians, writers and the like. Other artists held studio space at 306, such as Jacob Lawrence, Addison Bates and his brother Leon.[1][3][6][15] During this time Alston founded the Harlem Artists Guild with Savage and Elba Lightfoot to work toward equality in Works Progress Administration art programs in New York. During the early years of 306, Alston focused on mastering portraiture. His early works such as Portrait of a Man (1929) show Alston's detailed and realistic style depicted through pastels and charcoals, inspired by the style of Winold Reiss. In his Girl in a Red Dress (1934) and The Blue Shirt (1935), Alston used modern and innovative techniques for his portraits of young individuals in Harlem. Blue Shirt is thought to be a portrait of Jacob Lawrence. During this time he also created Man Seated with Travel Bag (c. 1938–40), showing the seedy and bleak environment, contrasting with work like the racially charged Vaudeville (c. 1930) and its caricature style of a man in blackface.[1]

Inspired by his trip south, Alston began his "family series" in the 1940s.

ink and wash painting, which is seen in work such as Portrait of a Woman (1955), as well as creating portraits to illustrate the music surrounding him in Harlem. Blues Singer #4 shows a female singer on stage with a white flower on her shoulder and a bold red dress.[1][3] Girl in a Red Dress is thought to be Bessie Smith, whom he drew many times when she was recording and performing. Jazz was an important influence in Alston's work and social life, which he expressed in such works as Jazz (1950) and Harlem at Night.[1]

The 1960s civil rights movement influenced his work deeply, and he made artworks expressing feelings related to inequality and race relations in the United States. One of his few religious artworks was Christ Head (1960), which had an angular "Modiglianiesque" portrait of Jesus Christ. Seven years later he created You never really meant it, did you, Mr. Charlie? which, in a similar style as Christ Head, shows a black man standing against a red sky "looking as frustrated as any individual can look", according to Alston.[1]

Modernism

Experimenting with the use of

Guernica, which was a favorite work of Alston's.[1]

His final work of the 1950s, Walking, was inspired by the Montgomery bus boycott. It is taken to represent "the surge of energy among African Americans to organize in their struggle for full equality."[16] Alston is quoted as saying, "The idea of a march was growing....It was in the air...and this painting just came. I called it Walking on purpose. It wasn't the militancy that you saw later. It was a very definite walk-not going back, no hesitation."[1][17]

Black and white

The

monochromatic hues throughout the series which Wardlaw describes as "some of the most profoundly beautiful works of twentieth-century American art."[1]

Murals

Charles Alston's early mural work was inspired by the work of

Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn, New York.[1][3][8]

Harlem Hospital Murals

Harlem Hospital

Originally hired as an easel painter, in 1935 Alston became the first African-American supervisor to work for the

holistic healing, is considered one of "America's first public scenes of Africa". All of the mural sketches submitted were accepted by the FAP; however, hospital superintendent Lawrence T. Dermody and commissioner of hospitals S.S. Goldwater rejected four proposals, due to what they said was an excessive amount of African-American representation in the works.[1][3][6][18] The artists fought their response, writing letters to gain support. Four years later they succeeded in gaining the right to complete the murals.[1][3] The sketches for Magic in Medicine and Modern Medicine were exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art's "New Horizons in American Art".[1][3][15]

Condition

Alston's murals were hung in the Women's Pavilion of the hospital over uncapped radiators, which caused the paintings to deteriorate from the steam. Plans failed to recap the radiators. In 1959, Alston estimated, in a letter to the New York State Department of Public Works, that the conservation would cost $1,500 but the funds were never acquired. In 1968, after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., Alston was asked to create another mural for the hospital, to be placed in a pavilion named after the slain civil rights movement leader. It was to be titled Man Emerging from the Darkness of Poverty and Ignorance into the Light of a Better World.

One year after Alston's death in 1977, a group of artists and historians, including the renowned painter and

conserve Alston's murals and three other pieces in the original commissioned project as part of a $225 million hospital expansion.[1][3]

Golden State Mutual murals

In the late 1940s, Alston became involved in a mural project commissioned by Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company, which asked the artists to create work related to African-American contributions to the settling of California. Alston worked with Hale Woodruff on the murals in a large studio space in New York; they used ladders to reach the upper parts of the canvas.[1][15] The artworks, which are considered "priceless contributions to American narrative art", consist of two panels: Exploration and Colonization by Alston and Settlement and Development by Woodruff. Alston's piece covers the period of 1527 to 1850. Images of mountain man James Beckwourth, Biddy Mason, and William Leidesdorff are portrayed in the well-detailed historical mural. Both artists kept in contact with African Americans on the West Coast during creation of the murals, which influenced their content and depictions. The murals were unveiled in 1949, and have been on display in the lobby of the Golden State Mutual Headquarters.[1][15]

Due to economic downturn in the early 21st century, Golden State was forced to sell their entire art collection to ward off its mounting debts. As of spring 2011 the National Museum of African American History and Culture had offered $750,000 to purchase the artworks. This generated controversy, as the artworks have been estimated to be worth at least $5 million. Supporters tried to protect the murals by gaining city landmark protections by the Los Angeles Conservancy. The state of California had declined philanthropic proposals to keep the murals in their original location, and the Smithsonian Institution withdrew their offer. The disposition of the murals are subject to a court case over jurisdiction, which was unresolved in the spring of 2011.[19][20] This was resolved later in 2011 when the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance building was added to the National Register of Historic Places. The building was purchased by Community Impact Development, a partnership formed to provide a new home for the South Central Los Angeles Regional Center, an agency that provides services to people with developmental disabilities. The building was renovated in 2015. The murals remain in the lobby.[21]

Sculpture

See also: Bust of Martin Luther King Jr. (Alston)

Alston also created sculptures. Head of a Woman (1957) shows his shift toward a "reductive and modern approach to sculpture....where facial features were suggested rather than fully formulated in three dimensions,".[1] In 1970, Alston was commissioned by the Community Church of New York to create a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. for $5,000, with only five copies produced.[22][23] In 1990, Alston's bronze bust of Martin Luther King Jr. (1970), became the first image of an African American to be displayed in the White House.[1][24] When Barack Obama became the first black president in 2009, he brought the bust of Martin Luther King Jr. into the Oval Office, replacing a bust of Winston Churchill. This marked the first time an image of an African American was displayed in the president's work quarters. Furthermore, the bust became a predominant work seen in official portraits of visiting dignitaries. Now, a second copy of the famous Martin Luther King Jr. bust is displayed in Washington for the public to view up close.[25][26]

World War II propaganda

Sketch of frying pan dripping grease onto howitzer emplacement surrounded by uniformed soldierss.
Artworks Promoting the War Effort and Original Sketches by Charles Alston, compiled ca. 1942 - ca. 1945

During

U.S. Office of War Information. Simultaneously, the cartoons were targeted to a black audience, designed exclusively for publication in the weekly black newspapers to address specific, controversial issues in the black community.[27]

Reception

Art critic Emily Genauer stated that Alston "refused to be pigeonholed", regarding his varied exploration in his artwork.[1] Patron Lemoine Deleaver Pierce said of Alston's work: "Never thought of as an innovative artist, Alston generally ignored popular art trends and violated many mainstream art conventions; he produced abstract and figurative paintings often simultaneously, refusing to be stylistically consistent, and during his 40-year career he worked prolifically and unapologetically in both commercial and fine art." Romare Bearden described Alston as "...one of the most versatile artists whose enormous skill led him to a diversity of styles..." Bearden also describes the professionalism and impact that Alston had on Harlem and the African-American community: "'was a consummate artist and a voice in the development of African American art who never doubted the excellence of all people's sensitivity and creative ability. During his long professional career, Alston significantly enriched the cultural life of Harlem. In a profound sense, he was a man who built bridges between Black artists in varying fields, and between other Americans."[3] Writer June Jordan described Alston as "an American artist of first magnitude, and he is a Black American artist of undisturbed integrity."[28]

Major exhibitions

Major collections

Notes

  1. ^
    ISBN 978-0-7649-3766-8
    .
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m "Charles Henry Alston". Artists. Hollis Taggart Galleries. 2011. Archived from the original on July 4, 2016. Retrieved April 9, 2010.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad ae af ag ah ai aj ak Pierce, Lemoine (2004). "Charles Alston – An Appreciation". The International Review of African American Art (4): 33–38.
  4. ^
    ISBN 978-0-8109-3108-4
    .
  5. ^ a b c d Murray, Al (interviewer) (October 19, 1968). Oral History Interview with Charles Alston (mp3). Archives of American Art. Archived from the original on November 4, 2011. Retrieved April 11, 2011.
  6. ^
    ISBN 1-57958-457-8
    .
  7. ^ "CUArts - Arts Initiative @ Columbia University". January 23, 2011. Archived from the original on January 23, 2011. Retrieved August 1, 2020.
  8. ^ a b c Sweimler, Joel (June 6, 2023). "Origin of Life - Charles Alston". Gottesman Research Library News. Retrieved November 21, 2023.
  9. ^ "Charles Alston, Artist and Teacher". African American Registry. Retrieved April 7, 2021.
  10. ^ Charles Henry Alston Memorial Service. May 21, 1977. Archives of American Art.
  11. ProQuest 369369766
    .
  12. ^ Vinciguerra, Thomas (2018–2019). "The Painter Who Wouldn't Be Pigeonholed". Columbia College Today. Retrieved November 21, 2023.
  13. ISSN 1091-2339
    . Retrieved November 21, 2023.
  14. ^ "Charles H. Alston". Images. AAGE. Archived from the original on July 24, 2011. Retrieved April 9, 2010.
  15. ^
    ISBN 0-19-284213-7
    .
  16. ^ Sharon J. Burton (2010). "Celebrating African American History Through Art: The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of African American History & Culture". Blog. Authentic Art Visions Blog. Archived from the original on August 12, 2011. Retrieved April 9, 2010.
  17. ISBN 978-0-394-57016-7
    .
  18. ^ "The Controversy". Harlem Hospital WPA Murals. Columbia University. 2006. Archived from the original on June 26, 2010. Retrieved April 9, 2010.
  19. ^ Eve M. Kahn (March 17, 2011). "Smithsonian Plan to Remove Murals From Los Angeles Lobby Is Criticized". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 4, 2012. Retrieved April 10, 2011.
  20. ^ Eve M. Kahn (March 28, 2011). "Smithsonian Won't Buy Murals of Black Life in California". The New York Times. Archived from the original on April 3, 2011. Retrieved April 10, 2011.
  21. ^ Meares, Hadley (February 18, 2020). "The pride of West Adams". CURBED Los Angeles. Retrieved December 6, 2023.
  22. ^ Special Committee on the Martin Luther King Bust. Minutes of the Meeting of the Special Committee on the Martin Luther King Bust. June 23, 1970. Archives of American Art.
  23. ^ Harrington, D. Martin Luther King Jr. Bust. Community Church of New York. October 22, 1970. Archives of American Art.
  24. ProQuest 199980619
    .
  25. ^ "Obama Adds MLK Bust to Oval Office". NBC4 Washington. March 19, 2009. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
  26. ^ Catlin, Roger (January 15, 2016). "A Rare and Important Sculpture of Martin Luther King". Smithsonian Magazine. Retrieved November 17, 2020.
  27. S2CID 152624177
    . Retrieved November 17, 2020.
  28. ^ Jordan, June. Publication proposal, March 25, 1970. Archives of American Art.
  29. ^ "January 2010 Programs". Calendar of Events. Reginald F. Lewis Museum. 2010. Archived from the original on January 5, 2010. Retrieved April 9, 2010.
  30. ^ Samantha McCoy (2009). "Canvasing the Movement: The Lewis' Arts Wall Captures Images of Civil Rights, Past and Present" (PDF). Press. Reginald F. Lewis Museum. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 17, 2010. Retrieved April 9, 2010.
  31. ProQuest 398825418
    .
  32. ^ Lawrence van Gelder (April 13, 1998). "This Week". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 6, 2018. Retrieved October 6, 2018.
  33. ProQuest 367497716
    .
  34. ^ Fraser, C. Gerald (December 7, 1986). "America's black artists are seen in new light". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 3, 2017. Retrieved April 10, 2011.
  35. ^ "Untitled (Couple)". Kalamazoo Institute of Arts. Retrieved May 6, 2020.
  36. ^ "Artist Info". www.nga.gov. Retrieved February 9, 2023.

32. ^"Charles Alston, Artist and Teacher." African American Registry. 30 July 2020. Web. 10 March 2021. <Charles Alston, Artist, and Teacher born

References

Further reading

External links

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