Blues Singer #1 (Primary Title)
Charles Henry Alston, American, 1907–1977 (Artist)
Blues Singer #1 positions a female figure against a background of blue and yellow bands. The woman shuts her eyes, tilts her head, and opens her mouth, thereby suggesting she is singing. We are given a painted snapshot of a gesture that is as ephemeral as the notes she is in the process of sounding. The composition suggests a severity prevalent in the blues genre circa 1925–55, which often explored African American torture, violence, oppression, and adversity. The North Carolina–born painter, draftsman, and educator Charles Alston was a leading artist in New York’s African American community from the 1920s through the mid-1970s.
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