White also played music as a child, studied modern dance, and was part of theatre groups; however, he stated that art was his true passion.

White had few opportunities to pursue his natural talent at this time due to the abuse and lack of resources from his household which was economically insufficient.

He used his own experiences, curiosity and feelings about the neglected history of African Americans to help shape a common theme within his work.

[7] An early activist, as a teenager, he volunteered his talents and became the house artist at the National Negro Congress in Chicago.

After reading Alain Locke's book The New Negro: An Interpretation, a critique of the Harlem Renaissance,[10] White's social views changed.

"[7] White did not graduate from high school, having lost a year due to his refusal to attend class after being disillusioned with the teaching system.

In 1939 he produced his WPA mural Five Great American Negroes, now at Howard University Gallery of Art.

While in New York City, White learned lithography and etching techniques at the Arts Student League, taking direction from renowned artist Harry Sternberg, who encouraged him to move beyond “stylization to individuation in his figures.” It was here that White honed his technical skills and developed a more deepened vision of black society.

There, White and Catlett joined the Taller de Gráfica Popular, an influential print shop collective focused on using art to advance revolutionary social causes.

[20] Printmaking enabled White to reach a wider public more directly and allowed him to bring together his social commitment and artistic practice.

Although he had long been aware of art’s social utility, with his lithographs and linocuts he was finally able to communicate with a large, cross-national community of black workers and socialist artists, as opposed to his paintings, which were generally tied to individual purchasers.

Priced at $3—about $35.23 in 2024—this portfolio aimed at getting art to the people, a main concern for progressive artists of the period.

[21] In 1956, due to ongoing respiratory issues—potentially related from an earlier case of tuberculosis—White moved to Los Angeles for its drier, more mild climate.

During his time at the Otis Art Institute, White was a mentor for many young Black artists, including Kerry James Marshall, Richard Wyatt Jr., David Hammons, and Alonzo Davis.

[6][9][24] Marshall reflected that “Under [his] influence I always knew that I wanted to make work that was about something: history, culture, politics, social issues.

Susan G. and Edmund W. Gordon of Pomona, New York donated their collection of works by Charles White to the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas, Austin.

[45][46] White "was a humanist, drawn to the physical body and more literal representations of the lives of African-Americans," according to Lauren Warnecke for the Chicago Tribune.

(1976)—a portrait of White's cousin, who was killed during an armed robbery—and Ye Shall Inherit the Earth (1953)—a charcoal drawing of civil rights icon Rosa Lee Ingram with a child in her arms—made sales records for the artist's work.