CHARLES ALSTON

Charles Henry Alston (1907 – 1977) 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. Alston designed and painted murals at the Harlem Hospital and the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Building. In 1990, Alston's bust of Martin Luther King Jr. became the first image of an African American displayed at the White House.

Charles Henry Alston was born on November 28, 1907, in Charlotte, North Carolina. In 1913, Anna Alston married Harry Bearden, Romare Bearden's uncle, making Charles and Romare cousins. the friendship between Romare and Charles would last a lifetime. In 1915, the Bearden/Alston family moved to New York, as many African-American families did during the Great Migration.

Alston graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School. He was a member of the Arista - National Honor Society. In 1929, he graduated and received the Arthur Wesley Dow fellowship to study at Teachers College, where he obtained his Master's in 1931. He also began teaching at the Harlem Community Art Center, founded by Augusta Savage in the basement of what is now the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. During this period, Alston began to teach the 10-year-old Jacob Lawrence. Alston was introduced to African art by the poet Alain Locke. He became the first African-American instructor at the Art Students League, where he remained on faculty until 1971. Alston also became the first African-American instructor at the Museum of Modern Art in 1956.
In 1963, Alston co-founded Spiral with his cousin Romare Bearden and Hale Woodruff. Spiral served as a collective of conversation and artistic exploration for a large group of artists who "addressed how black artists should relate to American society in a time of segregation." This group served as the 1960s version of the 306 Group. Alston was described as an "intellectual activist”.

In 1968, Alston received a presidential appointment from Lyndon Johnson to the National Council of Culture and the Arts. Mayor John Lindsay appointed him to the New York City Art Commission in 1969.

Writer June Jordan described Alston as "an American artist of first magnitude, and he is a Black American artist of undisturbed integrity."