Klaus Weidner, “Foreword,” translated from German by Margarethe Clausen, originally published as “Vorwort” to the exhibition catalog Ausstellung der amerikanischen Künstler Anton Refregier, Tecla Selnik, Charles White. Malerei— Plastik—Grafik (Berlin: Ausstellungszentrum Fernsehturm, March, 1974)

One of the first exhibitions in the GDR devoted to living American artists was held in East ­Berlin in 1974. An initiative of the VBK, it was devoted to artists with left-leaning political principles, including Charles White, whose representations of the lives of African-Americans in what he called “images of dignity” made him particularly attractive to Soviet-bloc curators. Charles White is rightly considered the artistic voice of his people, of American negroes and the working class in general.1 He created an artistic memorial to the heroes of abolitionism. Blues singers or black laborers are the protagonists in his work; he has stayed involved in their political struggles. When his artistic vocabulary resorts to expressive excess, he addresses the suffering and, at the same time, the great power that rests within humans. Thus, the beauty of colored Americans is the most characteristic aspect of his art.