Frederick Douglass

Charles White, artist

1918–1979

Frederick Douglass, 1951

Where object was made: United States

Material/technique: lithograph

Dimensions:
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 563 x 420 mm
Image Dimensions Height/Width (Height x Width): 22 3/16 x 16 9/16 in
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 663 x 507 mm
Sheet/Paper Dimensions (Height x Width): 26 1/8 x 19 15/16 in
Mat Dimensions (Height x Width): 32 x 24 in

Credit line: Museum purchase: Peter T. Bohan Art Acquisition Fund

Accession number: 2013.0160

Not on display

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Paying Homage: Celebrating the Diversity of Men in Quilts

This print is dedicated to Herbert “Herb” Aptheker (1915–2003), the son of Russian immigrants who became a political activist and scholar and wrote American Negro Slave Revolts (1943) and the seven-volume Documentary History of the Negro People (1951–1994).

Charles White was best known for his murals, but he also worked in pen and ink, linoleum cuts, and lithography. Through his art, White concentrated on the powerful beauty of African Americans and the experience of American culture. After World War II, and around the time of this print’s creation, White became increasingly concerned with shading and the intensity of light and dark within his artwork. White’s interest in humanity and the individual can be seen in this lithographic portrait of abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman Frederick Douglass.

Brosseau Center for Learning: In Conversation with the 2016 KU Common Book

“By my second year, it was natural for me to spend a typical day mediating between Frederick Douglass’s integration into America and Martin Delany’s escape into nationalism. Perhaps they were both somehow right. I had come looking for a parade, for a military review of champions marching in ranks. Instead I was left with a brawl of ancestors, a herd of dissenters, sometimes marching together but just as often marching away from each other.” ("Between the World and Me," pp. 47-48)