Members Opening—Charles White: A Little Higher

Thursday, November 9, 2023 at 5–7 p.m.

Great Hall and Fountain Room
Free for Members

Museum members are invited to view the exhibition Charles White: A Little Higher before it opens to the public and enjoy lite bites and a cash bar in the Fountain Room (Gallery 126). Not a member? Join today. 

In addition, members are inivited to attend the lecture about the artist's legacy lecture at 7 p.m. that evening in Gallery 105.

About the exhibition:

The exhibition features nearly 50 of White’s drawings, prints, and paintings selected from the Primas Family Collection, one of the nation’s premiere collections of work by Black artists. The forceful images of White’s early career merge into the breathtaking, emotive works for which he is best known, like the two large charcoal drawings in the exhibition from his J’Accuse series. Another notable feature, on public display for the first time, is a group of 12 oil-wash illustrations commissioned by the Johnson Publishing Company (Ebony, JET) for the landmark book The Shaping of Black America (1975) by noted author and Ebony editor Lerone Bennett, Jr.

Image credit: Charles White (American, 1918–1979), Awaiting His Return, 1946, lithograph, 15 ¾ x 12 ¼ in. (40 x 31 cm), Primas Family Collection, © The Charles White Archive

If you need accessibility accommodations, please contact us in advance at [email protected].