from exhibitions at the Met Breuer, NY in 2018 and MOMA, NY in 2025  Paintings of Jack Whitten, American, 1939-2018

 

 

Abstract Expressionism was a uniquely North American art movement even if it had Surrealism as one of its primary forbears.

 

The movement had, also, the sociological imprint of its native society: its artists and the intellectuals who supported them were not welcoming either of women or of non-white artists.  A very small group of white men held sway over the North American art establishment for decades.

 

Jack Whitten, born in the deep South of African-American parents, intended to “kill the father”:  his description of going up against the greats of the Abstract Expressionist tradition in its home, New York, with an expansion of both technique and subject matter.

 

 

 

Blue Chips:  A Dedication to Jackson Pollock, 2006-2007, acrylic on canvas

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American.  Artist’s estate loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

Whitten extended the reach of  abstraction to encompass Black America.

 

He extended the technique by using tools: carpenters’ saws, rakes, and squeegees and by incorporating substances like the chemicals used in  photocopying.  He experimented with kinds of acrylic paint.  

 

“I come from a people whose culture was totally cut off,” Whitten wrote in his journal. “The prize is to reconstruct the culture.”   

 

As his work progressed, Whitten spoke longingly of wanting to be an artist-citizen of the world, a world in which “there is no race, no color, no gender, no territorial hangups, no religion, no politics. There is only life.”

 

 

 

a shot by MOMA, NY of a part of the exhibition, 2025

 

So soul-destroying and life-diminishing has been the history of the races in the United States, persisting to the present,

that every effort to integrate African Americans in a holistic North American definition of its own polity, culture and way of being is sacred work.

 

Whitten worked for nearly six decades. He was under pressure throughout his career to use representation as activism.

But he never gave up abstraction.

He developed for his abstraction large ideals:

the representation of the trials and genius of Black America;

the possibility of going beyond duality;

of opening ‘portals’ into our real, vast, diverse universe of light, complexity, beauty and the possibility of a cessation of our internecine, man-made darkness. 

To these ends, he never stopped experimenting with media and techniques.

 

One of his last paintings – not included here – was a vast double painting called Soul Map. The process and discipline of structuring the feelings of our lives he said amounted to creating a Soul Map.

 

His works are of a dazzling complexity, sophistication, and beauty. There is often a shivering kind of balance which might shift the next moment.

 

His work was celebrated in his lifetime and his fame has grown since his death.

 

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Sculpture

In 1969, Whitten and his Greek-American wife visited Greece.  They arrived eventually at the Cretan fishing village of Aghia Galini. 

There the family spent summers. 

Whitten made sculptures there. 

These fused his understanding of African shapes with Greek and Cycladic traditions. He incorporated contemporary technologies in these sculptures.

 

These sculptures represent the artist’s spiritual and intellectual evolution: a wish for cross-cultural understanding and for the miscegenation of our bloods (creolization).

 

These sculptures he held privately.  They were exhibited after his death with his permission.

 

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The artist was born in Bessemer, Alabama in 1939.  He determined to go to Tuskegee College to become a doctor.

 

One day in 1960 he marched in a Civil Rights march in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  What happened shocked him for life: 

“I witnessed evil,” he said.

 

 

 

Birmingham, 1964, aluminum foil, newspaper, stocking and oil on board. 

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Private loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

A  memorial to the 1964 church bombing that killed four African American girls.

 

 

“I saw hatred coming out of white people. They attacked us, threw shit and piss on us. We made it all the way to the state capitol building as they were hitting us with sticks. I did it then, but I made a vow, I would never put myself in that position again. That march is what drove me out of the South. I took a Greyhound bus to New York City.” 

 

 

 

Head IV Lynching, 1964,  acrylic on foam fabric on board

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Artist’s estate loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

Discarding his clothes in the Mississippi River in a ritual of repudiation and release, he left the South.

 

In New York, he attended Cooper Union and began to frequent the art scene: the artists Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline; and the African American artitst, Al Loving, William T. Williams and Melvin Edwards.  He attended the jazz musicians of the day: Art Blakey, John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk, Miles Davis.

Romare Bearden, Norman Lewis and Jacob Lawrence became his mentors.

 

 

 

Atlantis Rising, 1966, acrylic on canvas.

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Private loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

 

 

NY Battleground, 1967, oil on canvas

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. MOMA, NY

 

 

 

 

King’s Wish (Martin Luther’s Dream),  oil on canvas, 1968

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. MOMA, NY. From the website of the NY Times

The artist had marched with Martin Luther King on the state capitol in Baton Rouge, Louisiana years before.

 

 

Light Sheet I, 1969, acrylic on canvas

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Artist’s estate loan to MOMA, NY in 2025 

 

 

 

By the early 1970s,  Whitten had abandoned brushes. Instead, using acrylic paint, he poured, levelled, scraped, raked, impressed and incised it with various tools which he made or improvised.

 

 

 

Small developer, 1983 

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Artist’s estate loan to MOMA, NY

 

 

 

 

Developer, 1970, wood

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Artist’s estate loan to MOMA, NY

 

 

 

Four Wheel Drive, 1970, acrylic on canvas

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Private loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

Whitten used acrylic for his experiments because of its extreme pliancy.  He tested  numerous binders, pigments, and emulsions, working with engineers and manufacturers. By 1973, Whitten was pushing the pliancy of acrylic to the limit.

 

 

Homage to Malcolm, 1970, acrylic on canvas, and details. 

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American.  Private loan to Brooklyn Museum in 2018/19

Several colours of paint laid down and combed with a hair comb.

 

 

 

King’s Way, 1971, acrylic on canvas.

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Private loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

Each painting was made up of several layers of  acrylic paint whose drying times differed.  The artist would then put down a watery layer of acrylic and drag ‘ the developer’ over the top.  Sometimes, as in Pink Psyche Queen (below), he used a two-by-four.

This uncovered the layers beneath; and produced a mesmerising effect not dissimilar to a photograph which may or may not be slightly out of focus.

 

 

 

Jack Whitten in his studio. 1974. © Courtesy of Paul Viani.

 

 

 

 

Tripping, 1971, acrylic on canvas

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Private loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

 

Pink Psyche Queen, 1973, acrylic on canvas

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Loan to MOMA, NY from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago in 2025

 

 

 

 

The Pariah Way, 1973, oil on canvas.

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Rose Art Museum, Brandeis Museum loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

Sometimes, the artist placed wire, sheet metal, pebbles, or some such underneath the canvas so that when the rake was  pulled across the top of the canvas,  negative shapes would be created, as if in relief.  Sometimes he would saw down these reliefs.

 

 

 

Mirsinaki Blue, 1974, acrylic on canvas.

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Cornell University, Ithaca, NY loan to MOMA, NY

 

 

 

Chinese Sincerity, 1974, acrylic on canvas

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

 

Whitten moved from colour to black and white (grayscale); and began to work on canvas hanging on the wall as opposed to on the ground.

 

 In 1971 this is what he said about black and white:  

“…I removed all spectrum colour from the studio: all reds, blues and yellows.  I took them out!  I reduced them down to black, white, and a range of grays.  You have to understand that getting rid of all the chroma and taking it to black and white is not just a formal exercise.

 

I am very much aware of the meaning of black and white in American society, which informs who I am as an African-American.   The formal reasons of black and white is one thing but there are also the reasons coming out of the political situation, and I wanted to see if I could combine them.”

 

 

 

 

Southern Manor, 1974, acrylic on canvas.

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Private loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

 

Special Checking, 1974, acrylic on canvas with rope. 

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018. American.  Philadelphia Museum of Art loan to  MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

 

Delta Group II, 1975, acrylic on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

 

 

 

Sphinx Alley II, 1975, acrylic on canvas

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American.  National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

 

 

 

Alpha Group II, 1975, acrylic and string on paper

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Private loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

 

 

Kappa, 1976, acrylic on canvas. 

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. MOMA, NY

 

 

 

 

Gamma Group 1, 1975,  acrylic on canvas. 

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Private loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

 

 

Liquid Space, 1976, acrylic slip on paper

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Loaned by the artist’s estate to MOMA, NY  in 2025

 

 

 

 

Liquid Space 1, 1976, acrylic slip and pencil on paper. 

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American.  MOMA, NY

 

 

 

 

Untitled, 1976, acrylic slip on paper. 

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American.  Estate of the artist on view at MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

 

Omikron 1, 1977, acrylic on canvas. 

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American.  Private collection on loan to the Baltimore Museum of Art in 2019.

 

 

 

 

Khee II, 1978, acrylic on canvas

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Art Institute of Chicago loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

The artist applied a notched tool attached to the Developer over the top of the layers of acrylic paint in this image.  He then applied thin sheets of coloured paper to the gessoed surface.  This resulted in a veil-like shimmer of colour.

 

 

 

 

 

The Annunciation IV, 1979, acrylic on canvas

  Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Private loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

 

 

Ogun’s Shield, 1989, canvas attached to wood board with wood elements painted with acrylic; welded steel frame.

  Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American.  Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington

 

 

 

 

DNA, 1979, acrylic on canvas.  

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American.  Private collection loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

 

 

Ascension, 1979, acrylic on canvas. 

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Glenstone Museum loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

The artist said that there were two sources for this work.  One was the fishermen off Crete who explained to him how they navigated in the dead of night in the Libyan Sea with nothing but blackness around.  The second was the artist’s time at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.  There he learned to navigate his life.

 

 

 

In 1974, Jack Whitten participated in an artist residency at the Xerox Corporation in Rochester, N.Y.  His work includes drawings and paintings with photocopy toner as a medium on paper.

 

 

 

Anomaly #6, 1974, photocopier toner on paper.

 

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Private loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

Tesserae (acrylic mosaic)

 

In 1980, the artist’s studio in Tribeca (NY city) was destroyed by fire.  He did not paint for 3 years. In 1983, he began again and made tesserae paintings composed of tiles of dried acrylic. 

 

He made these by pouring acrylic and pigment into moulds like recycled bottle caps and plastic packaging.  These he sometimes broke into pieces or ground before attaching them to the canvas.  

 

 

 

Ancient Mentor 1, 1985, acrylic and oil on canvas. 

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Private loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

 

 

Site IV, acrylic on canvas, 1986

 Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Private loan to Met Breuer in 2018.

 

The artist said the origin of this piece is the Yoruban divination trays the artist saw in an exhibition in New York.  He said that their form is also a claiming, finding and owning of a place.  This was something denied to African Americans until relatively recent times.

 

 

 

Bessemer Dream, 1986, acrylic and mixed media on canvas.

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art loan to Met Breuer in 2018

The museum notes that this is more collage than painting. The artist used scraps of denim and also dried acrylic models of bits and pieces of found objects.

 

 

 

 

Spiral: a Dedication to Romare Bearden, 1988, acrylic on canvas.

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Estate of the artist loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

Romare Bearden was a mentor of the artist.  He was one of the co-founders of Spiral, a group of artists dedicated to artistic experimentation and social activism.  Whitten liked the symbol: “an ancient symbol of space positioning oneself in the universe”.  He appreciated the community which the Spiral artists made for other artists (all but one were male).

 

 

 

 

Ogun’s Shield,  1989, canvas attached to wood board with wood elements painted with acrylic; welded steel frame.

  Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American.  Delaware Art Museum, Wilmington

 

 

 

 

Door to Manhattan, acrylic on canvas, 1990.

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY

 

The door represents the many symbolic doors in New York through which the artist passed between its separate communities.

 

 

 

 

 The Messenger (for Art Blakey), 1990, acrylic on canvas

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Private loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

 

 

Data II, 1991, acrylic on canvas. 

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Private loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

 

 

Homecoming: For Miles, 1992, acrylic on canvas, 

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Private loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

Miles Davis died in 1992.

 

 

 

 

Mask III, 1996, styrofoam, acrylic, hair and eggshells on plywood

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Estate of the artist loan to MOMA, NY

 

The Dark Mirror, 1997: For Roy L. 1997-98, acrylic on canvas.

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Loan from the estate of the artist to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

 

 

Flying High for Betty Carter, 1998. 

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Private loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

 

 

9.11.01, acrylic, ash, animal blood, hair, and mixed media on canvas.

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. The Baltimore Art Museum

This was the only work the artist made for years after he experienced the attack on the World Trade Center.  His office was in Tribeca (lower Manhattan). It took him 5 years to complete this work.

 

 

 

 

Self-Portrait:  Entrainment, 2008, acrylic and sunglass lenses on canvas.

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Loaned by the artist’s estate to MOMA, NY  in 2025

 

 

 

 

Zeitgeist Traps (for Michael Goldberg), 2009, acrylic on canvas

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Private loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

 

 

 

Apps for Obama, 2011, acrylic on three hollow-core doors.

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American.  Loan from the Zeno X Gallery, Antwerp to MOMA, NY

 

 

 

 

The Elizabeth Catlett Triptych (First Set), Loop #12, Loop #13, Loop #14, 2012, acrylic and glitter on canvas. 

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Private loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

 

Self-Portrait, 2014, acrylic on canvas.

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Private loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

 

 

 

Atopolis:  For Edouard Glissant, 2014, acrylic on canvas in 8 panels. 

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. MOMA, NY

 

Edouard Glissant (1928-2011), poet and writer born in Martinique, wrote about racism and colonialism and creolization: the inevitable mix of cultures which results from the movement of peoples; and of which the artist believed his work to be an example.

 

 

 

 

The Third Portal, 2016, acrylic on canvas. 

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Private loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

 

Black Monoliths

“…From the back porch at my house in Greece, I can see a huge rock that is up in the mountains. It’s a monolith, rising out of the earth, and that damn thing has really inspired me over the years. Back in the early 1980s, the Black Monolith idea came out of that massive rock.

“The Black Monoliths begin with a subject, a Black person who has contributed a lot to society.

“I plan to do the series for the rest of my life because the Black community has creative, successful people who have given back tremendously to society, which is not advertised a lot. These are not simplistic narrative paintings. The story’s in the paint…” Jack Whitten

 

 

View from Aghia Galini, 1969, acrylic and pencil on canvas

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Loan from the estate of the artist to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

Whitten  completed 11 Monoliths.  He infused the paint of the monoliths with materials such as coal dust, pearlescent powder, cuttlefish, coffee, walnuts, insects, recycled glass and pulverized mylar, studio floor sweepings, gold dust, glass and octopus ink. 

The works glow and shimmer in the near-dark.

 

 

 

Black Monolith I (A Tribute to James Baldwin), 1988, acrylic on canvas. 

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Glenstone Museum, Maryland on loan to Met Breuer in 2018.

James Baldwin,  1924-1987, writer, civil rights activist.

The artist created a very dense surface. He brushed several layers of acrylic paint onto found materials:  aluminum, diamond tread, paper doilies, bubble wrap, wire mesh, striated rubbed mats, paint cans.  When these had cured, the artist assembled them on canvas.

 

 

 

 

Black Monolith II,  (For Ralph Ellison), 1994; acrylic, black molasses, copper, salt, coal, ash, chocolate, onion, herbs, rust, eggshell, razor blade on canvas. 

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Brooklyn Museum loan to Met Breuer in 2018

 

The artist shaped this canvas to give form to Ralph Ellison (1914-1994) whose Invisible Man of 1952 represented for the artist an exact rendering of his life in the United States. 

 

 

 

 

Black Monolith III (For Barbara Jordan), 1998, acrylic collage on canvas. 

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Mott-Warsh Collection, Flint, Michigan loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

Barbara Jordan (1936-1996), a pioneer African-American politician both in her native Texas and at the national level.

 

 

 

 

Black Monolith IV (For Jacob Lawrence), 2001, acrylic on canvas

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Private loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

 

 

Black Monolith VI  (Mask for Terry Adkins, updated version), 2014 acrylic on canvas.

 Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Private collection loan to the Met Breuer in 2018

Terry Adkins, 1953-2014, musician and artist.

 

 

 

 

 

Black Monolith VII (Du Bois Legacy: For W.E. Burghardt), 2014

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Private loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

 

 

Black Monolith VIII (For Maya Angelou), 2015, acrylic on canvas 

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Brandeis Museum loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

 

 

 

Black Monolith IX (Open Circle for Ornette Coleman) 2013, acrylic on canvas.

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Private loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

 

 

 

 

Black Monolith X, The Birth of Mohammed Ali, 2016, acrylic on canvas.

Jack Whitten, 1939-2018, American. Private loan to MOMA, NY in 2025

“The man had this primal force about him, but the beauty was – what I call “the plasticity of boxing” – he could take that primal force and he knew how to structure it. In a way, that’s what I want to do in painting.”

 

 

Portrait of Jack Whitten on Broome Street, New York, 1974. © Courtesy of Paul Viani.