Jack Whitten was an American painter and sculptor.
13 Facts About Jack Whitten
2.
Jack Whitten traveled to nearby Montgomery, Alabama to hear Martin Luther King Jr.
3.
In 1960, Jack Whitten went to Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to begin studying art and became involved in Civil Rights demonstrations there.
4.
Jack Whitten enrolled immediately at the Cooper Union in the fall of 1960, graduating with a bachelor's degree in fine art in 1964.
5.
Shortly after graduating from Cooper Union, Jack Whitten had the opportunity to meet other black artists which included, Jacob Lawrence and Norman Lewis, while he remained in New York to start his art career.
6.
Jack Whitten concluded that slavery obstructed the culture of people of color.
7.
Therefore, Jack Whitten believed that it was his destiny to restore the culture through his pieces.
8.
Jack Whitten's paintings dated back to as early as the 1960s.
9.
Jack Whitten used a T-shaped tool, which he would call the "developer".
10.
Jack Whitten would move the T-shaped tool across the surface of his art in one single motion.
11.
Jack Whitten's work was featured in the Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1972.
12.
Jack Whitten has had individual shows at numerous private galleries and universities, including a 10-year retrospective in 1983 at the Studio Museum in Harlem and an exhibition of memorial paintings in 2008 at the Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
13.
Jack Whitten spent long portions of the summer in Crete, where he had a studio and made sculptures.