Paul Robeson,

1943

Grounded in the academic tradition, Charles White is celebrated for his monumental and expressive drawings of his fellow African Americans. Like his paintings and prints, these works were motivated by White’s lifelong commitment to addressing subjects of black history and themes of racial injustice, while claiming that his art had "a universality to it." This iconic portrait of the renowned singer, actor, and political activist Paul Robeson relates to White’s large multifigure mural <em>The Contribution of the Negro to Democracy in America</em>, which he painted in 1942–43 at the historically black Hampton University in Virginia. Inspired by Mexican muralists such as Diego Rivera, the work proclaimed a sweeping and polemical panorama of African American accomplishments in history, science, and the arts. This drawing may have served both as a detailed study to which White referred when painting the figure of Paul Robeson in the mural and as an independent teaching model for Hampton students. In its exquisitely modulated linear network of charcoal and carbon pencil that molds the planes and furrows of Robeson’s head and face, the drawing transcends its category of portrait study, breaking free from the crowded struggle against racism depicted in the Hampton mural to resonate as an inspirational presence.