45 Facts About Charles Alston

Charles Henry "Spinky" Alston was an American painter, sculptor, illustrator, muralist and teacher who lived and worked in the New York City neighborhood of Harlem.

Alston was active in the Harlem Renaissance; Alston was the first African-American supervisor for the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project.

Charles Alston designed and painted murals at the Harlem Hospital and the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Building.

Charles Henry Alston was born on November 28,1907, in Charlotte, North Carolina, to Reverend Primus Priss Alston and Anna Elizabeth Alston, as the youngest of five children.

Charles Alston's father had been born into slavery in 1851 in Pittsboro, North Carolina.

Charles Alston became a prominent minister and founder of St Michael's Episcopal Church, with an African-American congregation.

The senior Charles Alston was described as a "race man": an African American who dedicated his skills to the furtherance of the Black race.

Reverend Charles Alston met his wife when she was a student at his school.

Charles Alston was nicknamed "Spinky" by his father, and kept the nickname as an adult.

In 1910, when Charles Alston was three, his father died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage.

Charles Alston played with clay, creating a sculpture of North Carolina.

Charles Alston's father was good at drawing, having wooed Alston's mother Anna with small sketches in the medians of letters he wrote her.

Charles Alston secured a job overseeing elevator operations and the newsstand staff at the Bretton Hotel in the Upper West Side.

Charles Alston graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School, where he was nominated for academic excellence and was the art editor of the school's magazine, The Magpie.

Charles Alston was a member of the Arista - National Honor Society and studied drawing and anatomy at the Saturday school of the National Academy of Art.

Charles Alston entered the pre-architectural program but lost interest after realizing what difficulties many African-American architects had in the field.

Charles Alston explored Harlem restaurants and clubs, where his love for jazz and black music would be fostered.

The couple lived close to family; at their frequent gatherings Charles Alston enjoyed cooking and Myra played piano.

Charles Alston's teaching style was influenced by the work of John Dewey, Arthur Wesley Dow, and Thomas Munro.

Charles Alston was introduced to African art by the poet Alain Locke.

That same year Charles Alston received a second round of funding from the Rosenwald Fund to travel South, and he spent extended time at Atlanta University.

Charles Alston designed album covers for artists such as Duke Ellington and Coleman Hawkins, as well as book covers for Eudora Welty and Langston Hughes.

Charles Alston became staff artist at the Office of War Information and Public Relations in 1940, creating drawings of notable African Americans.

Charles Alston left commercial work to focus on his own artwork, and 1950 he became the first African-American instructor at the Art Students League, where he remained on faculty until 1971.

Charles Alston landed his first solo exhibition in 1953 at the John Heller Gallery, which represented artists such as Roy Lichtenstein.

Charles Alston exhibited there five times from 1953 to 1958.

In 1956, Charles Alston became the first African-American instructor at the Museum of Modern Art, where he taught for a year before going to Belgium on behalf of MoMA and the United States Department of State.

Charles Alston coordinated the children's community center at Expo 58.

In 1963, Charles Alston co-founded Spiral with his cousin Romare Bearden and Hale Woodruff.

Charles Alston was described as an "intellectual activist", and in 1968 he spoke at Columbia about his activism.

In 1968, Charles Alston received a presidential appointment from Lyndon Johnson to the National Council of Culture and the Arts.

Charles Alston worked with oil-on-Masonite during this period as well, using impasto, cream, and ochre to create a moody cave-like artwork.

Charles Alston met Orozco when they did mural work in New York.

In 1943, Charles Alston was elected to the board of directors of the National Society of Mural Painters.

Charles Alston created murals for the Harlem Hospital, Golden State Mutual, American Museum of Natural History, Public School 154, the Bronx Family and Criminal Court, and the Abraham Lincoln High School in Brooklyn, New York.

Originally hired as an easel painter, in 1935 Charles Alston became the first African-American supervisor to work for the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project in New York.

Charles Alston had the chance to create and paint his own contribution to the collection: Magic in Medicine and Modern Medicine.

When creating the murals, Charles Alston was inspired by the work of Aaron Douglas, who a year earlier had created the public art piece Aspects of Negro Life for the New York Public Library.

Charles Alston had researched traditional African culture, including traditional African medicine.

Charles Alston's murals were hung in the Women's Pavilion of the hospital over uncapped radiators, which caused the paintings to deteriorate from the steam.

In 1959, Charles Alston estimated, in a letter to the New York State Department of Public Works, that the conservation would cost $1,500 but the funds were never acquired.

Charles Alston worked with Hale Woodruff on the murals in a large studio space in New York; they used ladders to reach the upper parts of the canvas.

In 1970, Charles Alston was commissioned by the Community Church of New York to create a bust of Martin Luther King Jr.

Charles Alston produced over one hundred government propagandistic illustrations that supported the national position on the war for the US Office of War Information.

Art critic Emily Genauer stated that Charles Alston "refused to be pigeonholed", regarding his varied exploration in his artwork.