This, My Brother

Arts of the Americas

1942

Charles White
American, 1918–1979

Like many artists of his generation, Chicagoan Charles White believed that art could be an influential force in the struggle to promote racial equality for African Americans, stating, “Paint is the only weapon I have with which to fight what I resent.” He addressed the quest for dignity and freedom in This, My Brother, which takes its title from a poem by John Rood about a rural miner who experiences a political awakening. In the painting, the man appears to break free from a mountain of rubble, alluding to White’s hope that social change could be realized.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Charles White
Title: This, My Brother
Origin: Chicago
Date: 1942
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Signed lower right: Charles White 42
Dimensions: 61 × 91.4 cm (24 × 36 in.)
Credit Line: Pauline Palmer Prize Fund
Reference Number: 1999.224
Copyright: © The Charles White Archives

Judith A. Barter et al., American Modernism at the Art Institute of Chicago, From World War I to 1955, (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago/Yale University Press, 2009), cat. 137.

Atlanta University, Exhibition of Paintings by Negro Artists of America, Apr 19–May 10, 1942, cat. 69.
Chicago, Spertus Museum, A Force for Change: African American Art and the Julius Rosenwald Fund, Feb 2–Jun 5, 2009; Allentown Art Museum, PA, Sep 13, 2009–Jan 10, 2010; Montclair Art Museum, NJ, Feb 6–Jul 25, 2010 (Chicago only).
Art Institute of Chicago, They Seek a City: Chicago and the Art of Migration, 1910–1950, Mar 3–Jun 3, 2013, cat. 91.
Art Institute of Chicago, Charles White: A Retrospective, Jun 8–Sept 3, 2018, cat. 15, pl. 13; New York, Museum of Modern Art, Oct 7, 2018–Jan 13, 2019; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Feb 17–Jun 9, 2019.

The artist; to Dr. William Patterson and Louise Thompson Patterson, New York; to Mary Louise Patterson, New York; [ACA Galleries]; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago in 1999.

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