Roland Charles

Roland Charles (August 31, 1938 – May 26, 2000) was an African-American photographer and gallerist, best known for co-founding The Black Photographers of California and its associated exhibition space, the Black Gallery, in Los Angeles, among the first institutions by and for black photographers.

Early life and education Roland Charles was born in Louisiana in 1938. He moved to a community known as Bobtown (near Houma, Louisiana) as a child, and lived there until he graduated from high school. He served in the Air Force, and then moved to California in the early 1960s, where he worked in the aerospace industry. After a friend gave him a camera as a gift, he became a full-time freelance photographer in 1971, securing work on music album covers and with gossip reporter Rona Barrett.

Charles earned a bachelor's degree in Communications from Windsor University and studied television production and photography at Otis College of Art and Design, Los Angeles Trade-Technical College, and the University of Southern California.

Photographic career In November 1983, Charles organized a show at the California Museum of Afro-American History and Culture in Exposition Park, called The Tradition Continues: California Black Photographers. It was a major exhibit featuring seven pioneering California photographers and 40 contemporary ones, including Frank Herman Cloud, Vera Jackson, Harry Adams, Jack Davis, Fred Cooper, and Howard Morehead.

As a gallerist and photographer, Charles had an appreciation for the mix of utilitarian and fine art photography produced by many black photographers of his era, such as the newspaper photography of prolific black press photographer Harry Adams, whom Charles was acquainted with.

Charles also expressed appreciation for the fundamental craft of photography — in discussing a double-exposed photograph of his daughter dancing in the Los Angeles Times, he said, “when I think of this photograph, I think of poetry in motion.” After the success of this exhibit, Charles embarked on a book project, Life in a Day of Black L.A., which would feature commissioned photographs from ten local black photographers. The project would, he hoped, "fill the void in the projection of black culture."

Charles' dedication to a fair depiction of black life could be seen in his participation in the controversy around the Whitney Museum’s 1995 show, “Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art.” The show spurred a series of counter-exhibits called “African American Representations of Masculinity,” led by a group of black artists in Los Angeles including Charles. Interviewed by LA Weekly, Charles said that he hoped to humanize black men and dispel fear with his images, and said: "Since Birth of a Nation, we’ve had an image problem."

The Black Gallery The Black Gallery (1984-1998), dedicated exhibition space for African American photographers, located at 107 Santa Barbara Plaza, Los Angeles, CA. The success of the show led Charles to help found the Black Photographers of California, a nonprofit educational institution for emerging and established African American Photographers. Sponsored by that organization, Charles and co-founders Calvin Hicks, Donald Bernard, and Gil Garner started the Black Gallery in Santa Barbara Plaza, now Marlton Square. Supported by grants and donations, the gallery curated and encouraged black photographers. Charles later said, “L.A. is very rich visually, but most images that are supposed to represent it are not done by people in the community.”

The cooperation among these galleries and the community of black artists in Los Angeles had given rise to a thriving art scene by the 1970s, and it was into this scene that Charles arrived as a curator in the 1980s. “The cooperation among the galleries has created a bond, a new kind of spirit and a camaraderie,” Charles told the L.A. Times in 1985.

The Black Gallery closed in 1998 and its archives were donated to the Tom and Ethel Bradley Center at California State University, Northridge.

Selected exhibitions Charles's photographs were included in several local and national exhibitions.

Jazz Photography: M. Hanks Gallery Celebrates Black History Month, a group exhibit of photographs by Ray Avery, Bob Douglas and Roland Charles at the M. Hanks Gallery in Los Angeles, March 1991. “What Happened” in L.A.: Civil Disturbance: L.A. 1992, a group exhibit at the Louis Stern Galleries in Beverly Hills, California, in October 1992. Los Angeles: Then and Now, a group exhibit at the Los Angeles Central Library in 1994. Photographs by Laura Aguilar, Roland Charles, Irene Fertik, Claire Henze, Peter Kelly, Christian Morland, and William Reagh documented 25 years in Los Angeles. African American Representation of Masculinity, a group exhibition organized by curator Cecil Fergerson and a group of black artists calling themselves the Coalition for the Survival of Community Arts. The group formed in response New York’s Whitney Museum exhibit “Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art” curated by Thelma Golden. The central question the coalition asked is “Can black American reclaim control of its image?” Sixty-seven artists participated including Roland Charles, Mark Greenfield, John Outterbridge, and Pat Ward Williams. The exhibition was presented throughout 1995 at the William Grant Still Arts Center, the Museum of African-American Art, and the Watts Towers Arts Center. Black Photographers of Los Angeles, a panel discussion and slideshow at the Getty Center with Roland Charles, Don Cropper, Jack Davis and Bob Douglas, November 11, 1998. Contemplating the Millennium, a group show at the Mount San Jacinto College Fine Arts Gallery, January–February 1999. Artists included Cedric Adams, Dale Brockman, Roland Charles, Leah M. Doyle, Juanita Cole Howard, Keba Konte, Dominique Moody, Elliot Pinkney and Rufus Shoddy. Fade (1990-2003), a survey of African-American artists in Los Angeles from the Great Depression to the Present, at Cal State Los Angeles Luckman Gallery and the Craft and Folk Art Museum, Los Angeles, February 2004. Identity & Affirmation: Post-War African-American Photography, an exhibit at California State University Northridge, as part of the Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A., 1945–1980, October 23–December 10, 2011. Photographers featured in the exhibit included Roland Charles, Guy Crowder, Jack Davis, Bob Douglas, Joe Flowers, Maxie Floyd, Calvin Hicks, Bob Moore, and Charles Williams. V.A.R.I.O.U.S. Media INK Visionary Artists Showcase & Networking Events 1980-1983 Roland Charles exhibited multiple times in this Interactive Artists Showcase at the LA Department of Water and Power’s theater @ 100 No. Hope Street and at equity waiver theaters all over LA County. His participation in bringing a donated projection screen we strapped to the roof of his car was invaluable to the audiences who attended the showcases to be inspired and participate in presenting their art and photography. He was a good friend who just crossed my mind.

Selected exhibits as curator A Day in the Life of Black Los Angeles, an exhibit of 120 photographs taken on Martin Luther King Day in 1988, at the Museum of African-American Art in Los Angeles, co-curated with Thomas L. Wright, February 1988. Ten photographers were featured including Nathaniel Bellamy, Don Cropper, Calvin Hicks, James Jeffrey and Karen Kennedy. Life in a Day of Black L.A., a traveling companion exhibit to the book, which began at the UCLA Extension Design Center in Santa Monica, CA on December 6, 1992, then moving to the California African-American Museum in April 1993, before continuing on a nationwide tour. Participating artists included Roland Charles, Nathaniel Bellamy, Don Cropper, Calvin Hicks, James Jeffrey, Mike Jones, Karen Kennedy, Rod Lyons, Willie Middlebrook, and Akili-Casundria Ramsess. Crossing L.A.: The Visual Arts, a group exhibit at the Museum of African-American Art in Los Angeles in August, 1993. After Apartheid: In Search of a Black Middle Class: South Africa, a show of photographs by David Lurie, at the Los Angeles Photography Center in April, 1994, and at Cypress College, in Cypress, California, Nov-Dec, 1994. Collaborations, a joint exhibit of 25 black artists and Korean-American artists in Koreatown and South Central Los Angeles, co-curated with Julie Sim-Edwards following the 1992 Los Angeles Riots. April 1995. Participating artists included Byong Ok Min and Gary Williams. African American Representations of Masculinity, a show of photography by and about African American men, curated with Donald Bernard and Willie Robert Middlebrook, at the Watts Towers Arts Center in Los Angeles, May–June 1995. Bobtown: The Legacy of Robert Celestin, a 25-year retrospective of life in a 100-year-old Black rural community, founded in South Louisiana by Charles' great grandfather, Robert Celestin. Bobtown has been exhibited at the Terrebonne Museum and galleries at Dillard University and Nicholls State University.