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This week on State of the Arts NYC we have Esther Adler, Associate Curator, Department of Drawings and Prints at The Museum of Modern Art. We talk about Charles White and the retrospective MoMA has organized for the first time in a major American museum.

White’s far-reaching vision of a socially committed practice attracted promising young artists, including many artists of color, and he became one of the 20th century’s most important and dedicated teachers. Acclaimed contemporary artists David Hammons and Kerry James Marshall were among his many students: as Marshall reflected, “Under Charles White’s influence I always knew that I wanted to make work that was about something: history, culture, politics, social issues. … It was just a matter of mastering the skills to actually do it.”