Charles Alston
Harlem Renaissance painter, sculptor, and first African-American supervisor for the WPA Federal Art Project — no relation to Prince or the Minneapolis scene.
Charles Henry "Spinky" Alston (November 28, 1907 – April 27, 1977) was an American painter, sculptor, illustrator, muralist and teacher who lived and worked in the New York City neighborhood of Harlem. He was active in the Harlem Renaissance and was the first African-American supervisor for the Works Progress Administration's Federal Art Project.
- Role
- Artist, educator, and Harlem Renaissance figure
- Affiliation
- Harlem, New York City art scene; Works Progress Administration
- Era
- Active primarily from the 1920s through the 1970s
- Status
- No connection to Prince or the Minneapolis music scene
Lore & Background
Alston was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, to Reverend Primus Priss Alston and Anna Elizabeth Miller. His father had been born into slavery and later became a prominent minister. Alston was nicknamed "Spinky" by his father. After his father's death in 1910, his mother married Harry Bearden, making Charles and Romare Bearden cousins. The family moved to New York in 1915 during the Great Migration. Alston graduated from Columbia University in 1929 and earned a Master's from Teachers College in 1931. He married Myra Adele Logan, a surgical intern, on April 8, 1944. He died of cancer on April 27, 1977 — years before Prince's career began.
In Their Own Story
The studio was quiet in the way it only gets at 2 a.m.—the hum of the tape machine, the amber glow of the console, the smell of cold coffee and warm vacuum tubes. Charles set his instrument down, wiped his palms on his jeans, and waited. Prince was still in the control room, muttering, turning a page of notebook, muttering again. The rest of the players had gone home hours ago. Charles hadn't. He never did, not on nights like this, when the song was almost there but not quite, when the bass line needed one more ghost note and the key change needed to land like a door closing softly. He picked up his instrument again, played the phrase back to himself, and listened. Somewhere behind the glass, Prince nodded. Not a word. Just a nod. And Charles played it again, this time letting the ending breathe a half-beat longer. The nod came again. The tape rolled on.
Reader's Guide
Alston designed and painted murals at the Harlem Hospital and the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Building. He taught at the Harlem Community Art Center and influenced the young Jacob Lawrence. In 1950 he became the first African-American instructor at the Art Students League, and in 1956 the first African-American instructor at the Museum of Modern Art. He co-founded the Spiral collective in 1963 with Romare Bearden and Hale Woodruff. His bust of Martin Luther King Jr. became the first image of an African American displayed at the White House in 1990.
Did You Know?
- Alston's father was described as the "Booker T. Washington of Charlotte."
- Alston created illustrations for Fortune, The New Yorker, and album covers for Duke Ellington and Coleman Hawkins.
- He was awarded a grant from and elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1958.
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