Charles Henry Alston: A Pivotal Harlem Renaissance Artist

Charles Henry Alston - Painting - 1950 - Oil on canvas - 50 x 36 in. (127 x 91.4 cm) - Metropolitan Museum of Art, New YorkCharles Henry Alston (1907-1977) was an African American painter, sculptor, and illustrator born in the early 20th century. He was an important artist of the Harlem Renaissance. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, his father died when he was three years old. Soon after, his mother moved to New York and married Harry P. Bearden—the uncle of artist Romare Bearden (featured elsewhere on this site). Alston attended DeWitt Clinton High School, taught there, and graduated from Columbia University in 1929. In 1931, he received a master’s degree from Columbia’s Teachers College.

Alston directed art programs and community centers in the New York area including the Harlem Workshop. Jacob Lawrence (also featured on What About Art?) was one of his students at Utopia House. He directed the 35 artists who created the Harlem Hospital murals for the Federal Arts Project in 1935 and 1936, painting two of the murals himself. Many of Alston’ works were published in the New Yorker, Fortune, and Collier’s magazines. In 1950, he sold the painting featured here to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He also became the first Black instructor at the Art Students league.

Alston later taught at the Museum of Modern Art and City College of New York. The winner of numerous awards, he was the first recipient of Columbia University’s Distinguished Alumni Award, bestowed on him in 1975. 

Alston and his wife, Myra A. Logan (a surgeon) died of cancer within months of each other in 1977.