Correspondence
name: label: Collection Creator
content: White, Charles (1918-1979)
setName: label: See more items in
content: Charles W. White papers
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 3.64 Linear Feet (Boxes 1-4, 13)
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1937-1984
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives of American Art
identifier: label: Identifier
content: AAA.whitchar, Series 2
objectType: label: Type
content: Archival materials
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: This series is arranged alphabetically by name of correspondent interspersed occasionally by name of subject, and chronologically thereafter. Some correspondents with illegible signatures or for whom only the first name is known are housed at the end of the series. Other small groups of correspondence including get well cards sent to White in 1978, personal announcements and invitations received by the White family to events such as christenings and weddings or annotated by Frances White to indicate personal connections, and condolence letters on the death of Charles White, are also housed at the end of the series.
altformavail: label: Existence and Location of Copies
content: Series is digitized in entirety.
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: This series consists primarily of professional correspondence, with some family and other personal correspondence scattered throughout. Several references are made in the correspondence to the fact that White was not known to be a letter writer, and indeed a large portion of his professional correspondence appears to have been conducted by Benjamin Horowitz of Heritage Gallery on White's behalf. A significant portion of the correspondence is in the form of photocopies. In addition to letters, files may contain financial and legal records, and photographic or printed material. 

Notable family correspondence includes eight letters from White's great-aunt, Hasty Baines, who was the subject of his painting Matriarch, and lived to be over a hundred. There is also one letter from White's mother, Ethelene Gray, in which she admonishes her son for not writing to her and expresses her desire for a visit from him. There are three folders of correspondence with social worker and civic leader Ann Shaw. Shaw and her husband, Leslie Shaw, were close friends of the Whites for many years.

Professional correspondence documents White's relationship with Benjamin Horowitz and Heritage Gallery and includes an agreement, with terms, to act as artist representative and dealer for White signed by Horowitz in 1962. Heritage Gallery files also include groups of letters mailed to multiple recipients, such as letters informing people of publications about Charles White and letters to the Charles White Memorial Committee. White's personal relationship with Horowitz and his wife Miriam is also documented through personal notes and postcards. Horowitz's book on Charles White, Charles White: Images of Dignity, is documented in Series 3.2: Writings by Others.

White's involvement with galleries, museums, and publications dedicated to promoting African American artists is represented in substantial correspondence with Brockman Gallery and Alonzo Davis, Margaret Burroughs and DuSable Museum, the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Hoyt Fuller and Negro Digest, and others. Barnett-Aden Gallery correspondence includes a photocopy of an essay by White about his association with the gallery in its early years, written at the gallery's request. 


Letters from artists and writers are scattered but often substantive. There are letters from artists such as Richmond Barthé, Romare Bearden, Claude Clark, Bing Davis, David Driskell, Elton Fax, Langston Hughes, Rockwell Kent, Jacob Lawrence, Hughie Lee-Smith, and others, letters from dancer Arthur Wright, and from writers Howard Fast, Nikki Giovanni, Lorraine Hansberry, Langston Hughes, Carlton Moss, and Alice Walker. 


Also documented are purchases and loans of White's artwork for exhibition by galleries, art institutions, and community groups including Atlanta University, Carnegie Institute, Forum Gallery, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Smithsonian's National Collection of Fine Arts, Pasadena Society of Artists, and others. Otis Art Institute correspondence found here is between Heritage Gallery and the institute, and relates to arrangements for loans and exhibition of White's artwork at Otis Art Institute. 


Commercial publication of White's artwork is also documented in correspondence with George A. Pflaum Publishers, Inc., Golden State Mutual Insurance Company, Johnson Publishing Company, Pro Artis, Scholastic Magazines, Inc., Twentieth Century Fox, and others, including correspondence and agreements related to White's illustrations for Harry Belafonte Enterprises which included a songbook, an anthology, and a holiday show.