This biography from the Archives of AskART:
| An easel painter for the WPA division of the Illinois Art Project, a fine-art painter and print maker, Charles Davis was a black-American artist who studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and at Hull House. He depicted people of the Bronzeville neighborhood where he lived and felt much sympathy for the residents. He was quoted: "These people and the whole neighborhood have something to say. I want to paint real people and real places." (Terra 105)
Davis studied at the Art Institute of Chicago and with George Neal, and he exhibited at the Art Institute in 1938, 1940 and 1941.
Many of his works are luminous because of his method of building up a series of rich color glazes over a white ground. His painting, "Newsboy", in the collection of Howard University Gallery of Art, toured from December 1940 to January 1941 in an exhibition called "Art of the American Negro". The Library of Congress was the first venue. One of his murals is in the Hall Library in Chicago.
Sources include:
Elizabeth Kennedy, Editor; "Chicago Modern, 1893-1945", Terra Museum of American Art
Peter Falk, "Who Was Who in American Art" |
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