Artist, Jack Whitten: I saw myself as an innovator. I’m wanting to experiment in painting. I had to find out what was possible.
Narrator: Welcome to Jack Whitten: The Messenger. That voice you just heard belongs to the artist. You’ll hear archival audio of him throughout this exhibition.
Whitten was born in Bessemer, Alabama in 1939. Over the course of his career, which spanned nearly 60 years, Whitten invented new forms of abstraction. But his earliest works were based on his own history.
Jack Whitten: I grew up in strict segregated apartheid. So I have memories of getting on the bus, there would be empty seats for the white people up front. The Blacks would be standing up in the back. I grew up in a total separate segregated society. Total. Not a little bit. Total.
Narrator: In 1957, Whitten met the Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., following a speech he gave in Montgomery, Alabama.
Jack Whitten: When I met King that time, he left a big mark on me. Man really got under me. He meant a lot. Before King’s assassination, I was doing a whole group of paintings for Martin Luther King—King’s Garden, King’s Wish, King’s Dream.
Narrator: This drawing, along with several other works hanging nearby, is part of that series.
Jack Whitten: Considering my background, coming out of the South, I’m becoming more and more aware, whether I tell a story or not, just the fact that I’m doing it is political. The act of doing what I’m doing in abstraction makes it political.
Archival audio courtesy of The HistoryMakers Digital Archive and The Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution