Jack Whitten, American abstract painter and civil rights activist, dies at 78

Jack Whitten, an American conceptual painter, passed away at age 78. His artistic journey began in segregated Alabama, where witnessing Martin Luther King Jr.'s speech during the Montgomery Bus Boycott sparked his activism. He participated in Civil Rights demonstrations while studying art at Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In 1960, Whitten relocated to New York to attend Cooper Union, where he started experimenting with color and texture. His early works addressed themes like the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War. Over his five-decade career, Whitten shifted from narrative pieces to Abstract Expressionism, conveying meaning through gesture and texture. The Walker Art Center presented a retrospective of his work in 2015. A sculpture exhibition titled Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture, 1965 – 2017 is scheduled to open in April at the Baltimore Museum of Art before moving to the Met Breuer in New York in September.