The Whites’ apartment was a social hub. In this photo, guests laugh as White’s painting Bessie Smith hangs prominently on the wall behind them. Charles White completed the painting for his third exhibition with the progressive American Contemporary Art (ACA) Gallery on 57th Street. Titled Negro Woman, the exhibition presented 15 works, all centered on the female form; the works, and White’s radical theme, met with critical success. White, however, never parted with Bessie Smith. In Reaches of the Heart, Fran White recalled that as White finished the painting, “he studied it carefully, removed it from his easel, and handed it to me. It was my very first Charles White original."