Tempera on cream wove paper, 1946. 660x510 mm; 26x20 inches. Signed and dated in tempera, lower right.
Provenance: private New York collection.
This striking, early work on paper is the first significant painting by Charles White to come to auction. It is closely related in composition to Woman of Sorrows, colored inks, 1947, Howard University, and in paint handling to Indian Woman, tempera, 1946, private collection (see Finkelstein, ill. 13-14). These and other works such as Mater Dolorosa, oil on canvas, 1946, ACA Galleries, each portray an isolated and devastated woman. In the mid- to late 1940s, Charles White popularized the plight of the downtrodden depicted with graphic social realism. These works of anonymous subjects are imbued with an intense level of emotion. The everyday heroism of African Americans overcoming the great struggles of the pre-Civil Rights era are found in these strong, dignified figures. At the same time, White was fighting the effects of tuberculosis, which he contracted during his brief army service in 1944. Despite the upheaval of his convalescence and the war itself, this was an incredibly important creative period for the artist. By the end of 1946, he traveled to Mexico to study lithography, where he created similar images such as the well-known lithograph Awaiting His Return, another version of a despondent, solitary woman. The following year, White had achieved his first one-man exhibition at ACA Gallery in New York.
