Graphite and charcoal on vellum paper, circa 1978. 420x395 mm; 16 1/2x15 1/2 inches. With the artist's estate ink stamp signature, lower right.
Provenance: the artist's estate, Los Angeles; Heritage Galleries, Los Angeles, with the gallery label on the frame back; private New York collection.
Lead Belly (Huddie Ledbetter) was a Louisiana blues singer and songwriter, famous for his song "Good Night Irene." Charles White painted other versions of the musician in 1943 in the Hampton University mural The Contribution of the Negro to Democracy in America, and in the 1952 oil painting Good Night Irene.
