Jack Whitten

Jack Whitten (December 5, 1939 – January 20, 2018) was an American abstract painter and sculptor. According to the Museum of Modern Art, he "invented art-making techniques that were the first of their kind." In 2016, he was awarded a National Medal of Arts.

Early life and education Jack Whitten was born December 5, 1939 in Bessemer, Alabama, to Mose Whitten and Annie B. Cunningham. His mother was a seamstress who eventually founded a private kindergarten. In addition to art, he played tenor saxophone in a high school band, the Dunbar Jazzettes. He joined the ROTC, like his older brother, and used the money that he earned from painting store tags to support himself through college.

Whitten believed strongly in Martin Luther King Jr.'s nonviolent approach. However, witnessing the violent reactions from the segregationists made him realize that if he remained in the South, he would turn violent himself. In 1960, he followed his Tuskegee professor's advice, and Black Monolith II, Homage to Ralph Ellison The Invisible Man, 1994.

Whitten's work was featured in the Annual Exhibition of Contemporary American Painting at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1972. The Whitney mounted a solo exhibition of his paintings in 1974. Solo exhibitions of his work have also been held at numerous museums, galleries, and universities, including a 10-year retrospective in 1983 at the Studio Museum in Harlem and an exhibition of memorial paintings in 2008 at the Atlanta Contemporary Arts Center in Atlanta, Georgia.

From 1974 to 1995, Whitten was a professor of painting at Cooper Union, his alma mater. In the following years, he constructed a monumental painting titled 9.11.01 with ashes embedded in it as a memorial of the day.

President Barack Obama awarded Whitten the National Medal of Arts in 2015.

Exhibitions In 2013, curator Katy Siegel organized the exhibition Light Years: Jack Whitten, 1971-73 at the Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University. The exhibition featured many works created by Whitten between 1971 and 1973 which had never been exhibited before. In 2014, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego hosted a 50–year retrospective exhibition of Whitten's work; the show later traveled to the Wexner Center for the Arts in Columbus, Ohio and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis.

In 2018, the Baltimore Museum of Art hosted the retrospective exhibition Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture 1963–2016, primarily focused on Whitten's sculptural practice. and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. In 2019, the Hamburger Bahnhof–Museum für Gegenwart – part of the Berlin National Gallery – hosted the retrospective Jack Whitten: Jack's Jacks, Whitten's first solo exhibition in a European museum.

In March 2025, the Museum of Modern Art, led by curator Michelle Kuo, presented Jack Whitten: The Messenger, the first monographic exhibit to showcase the entire range of Whitten's artistic media, including sculpture, painting, and printmaking.

Art market Whitten was represented by Hauser & Wirth (2016–2018), Alexander Gray Associates (2007–2016), and Zeno X Gallery.

Personal life Whitten married Florence Squires in the early 1960s and divorced soon after. Whitten and his second wife Mary resided in Queens, New York, at the time of his death.

Notable works in public collections

Homage to Malcolm (1965); Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York NY Battle Ground (1967); Museum of Modern Art, New York John Lennon Altarpiece (1968); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Slip Zone (1971); Dallas Museum of Art Pink Psyche Queen (1973); Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Chinese Sincerity (1974); Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego Siberian Salt Grinder (1974); Museum of Modern Art, New York Sorcerer's Apprentice (1974); Whitney Museum, New York Sphinx Alley II (1975); National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Epsilon Group I (1976); Dallas Museum of Art Epsilon Group II (1977); Tate, London Khee I (1978); Studio Museum in Harlem, New York Khee II (1978); Art Institute of Chicago Black Monolith I, A Tribute to James Baldwin (1988); Glenstone, Potomac, Maryland Natural Selection (1994); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston 9.11.01 (2006); Baltimore Museum of Art Atopolis: For Édouard Glissant (2014); Museum of Modern Art, New York Black Monolith XI, Six Kinky Strings: For Chuck Berry (2017); Glenstone, Potomac, Maryland

Publications

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