Projects and Commissions
name: label: Collection Creator
content: White, Charles (1918-1979)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Charles W. White papers
label: See more items in
content: Charles W. White papers / Series 4: Professional Activities
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1953-1982
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.whitchar, Subseries 4.3
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: Records are arranged alphabetically by name of project or commission.
altformavail: label: Existence and Location of Copies
content: The bulk of this series has been digitized; items not digitized include the full text of some publications, which may have only covers and relevant pages scanned.
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: This subseries includes records, primarily correspondence, contractual records, and printed material, related to the planning and execution of projects and commissioned work. 


Projects documented here include the first major Hollywood film White worked on, drawing Eartha Kitt in the title role of Anna Lucasta. Records include the photo of Eartha Kitt used by White for one of his three drawings for the film. Also found is correspondence and printed material related to the promotional art White produced for the Paramount Pictures film Leadbelly. Some of White's radio and television appearances are also documented here including a Black Journal feature for National Education Television, and a documentary by Silvermine Films, Inc., Five, about five contemporary Black artists including White. 

White's illustrative work is also documented including work for publications and companies such as Beacon Press, Childcraft, Doubleday & Company, Freedomways magazine, Jung Welt, Little Brown & Company, and Scholastic Book Services. Records include drafts of White's concepts for his drawings and correspondence related to his ideas. The records document, for instance, how he stressed to Diana Klemin of Doubleday, the importance of representing the dress of enslaved children accurately in his illustrations of Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, and Robert Smalls.

There are two folders of correspondence and one folder of financial records related to the publication of Sidney Finkelstein's monograph, Charles White: ein Künstler Amerikas and the inclusion of White's autobiographical essay. Records include contractual documents and a 1953 calendar produced by VEB Verlag der Kunst featuring artwork by White. Correspondence includes drafts of letters from White.