CHARLES ALSTON

A visionary artist and an influential teacher, Charles Alston (19071977) helped establish the Works Progress Administration's Harlem Art Workshop and was the first African American to be named a supervisor for the WPA's Federal Art Project. Alston's early studies of African sculpture influenced the appearance of the human figure in all of his work, and his experience as an American of African descent led him to express through his painting "the injustice, the indignity, and the hypocrisy suffered by black citizens." Alston was the first African American instructor at both the Art Students League of New York and the Museum of Modern Art and was a professor of painting at the City University of New York. Determined to assist artists who would follow in his footsteps, he cofounded Spiral, a renowned black artists' alliance.