Jack Whitten

artist

New York-based artist Jack Whitten's experiments with painting date to the 1960s, when, inspired by Abstract Expressionism, he created dynamic works noted for their raucous colors and density of gesture, combined with topical content emotionally complex meditations on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., the Civil Rights Movement, and the Vietnam War. Whitten's work was included in the 1969 and 1972 Whitney Annuals, the landmark 1971 exhibition, Contemporary Black Artists in America at the Whitney Museum, Energy/Experimentation: Black Artists and Abstraction 1964- 1980 at the Studio Museum in Harlem (2006); and High Times Hard Times: New York Painting 1967-1975, organized by Independent Curators International (2006). In Summer 2007, P.S.1 MoMA Center for Contemporary Art presented a solo exhibition, combining Whitten's epic 2005 painting, 9/11 with paintings from the 1960s; The Atlanta Center for Contemporary.