Jack Whitten is originally from Alabama. He went to Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana to begin studying art and became involved in Civil Rights demonstrations there. Angered by the violent resistance to change he experienced he moved to New York City in 1960. He graduated from Cooper Union in 1964. Afterwards he remained in New York as a working artist, heavily influenced by the abstract expressionists then dominating the art community. 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. He has also had individual shows at numerous private 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. Currently a retrospective exhibition is being organized and the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego will open this travelling exhibition in 2014.

Wednesday, March 20
7:00pm
Anna-Maria and Stephen Kellen Auditorium, Sheila C. Johnson Design Center, 66 Fifth Avenue

Admission:
Free; no tickets or reservations required; seating is first-come first-served

The Visiting Artists Lecture Series is sponsored by the School of Art, Media, and Technology (AMT) at Parsons The New School for Design. The lecture series, organized by Coco Fusco, director of intermedia initiatives at AMT, invites renowned artists from across the globe to give free public presentations each Wednesday. Find out about upcoming artist lectures here.