Alston, Charles Henry

Impact on the world

Became the first African American supervisor for the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project, designed murals for Harlem Hospital and the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Building, and decades after his death, his sculpted bust of Martin Luther King Jr. became, in 1990, the first image of an African American ever displayed at the White House.

Life & background

Born in Charlotte, North Carolina and raised partly by a stepfather, Henry Bearden, whose family connected Alston to his step-nephew, future collage artist Romare Bearden, Alston moved with his family to Harlem during the Great Migration, where his early artistic talent was recognized at his Manhattan public school. He became a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance and the broader Works Progress Administration arts programs of the Depression era, becoming the first African American to supervise the Federal Art Project, and designed significant murals for Harlem Hospital and the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Building, the latter already profiled in this collection. He also personally taught and mentored younger artists, including a young Jacob Lawrence at the Harlem Art Workshop, helping connect Lawrence to sculptor Augusta Savage's broader circle of support. In 1990, 13 years after his death, his sculpted bust of Martin Luther King Jr. became the first image of an African American to be displayed in the White House.

Sources

1. Smithsonian American Art Museum; Metropolitan Museum of Art; Studio Museum in Harlem