In 1930 William S. Carter came to Chicago from his native Saint Louis to study art. The University of Missouri did not accept black students, and the college for blacks in Jefferson did not offer an art curriculum. At the time, the Art Institute of Chicago was one of the few institutions that did admit blacks.
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Unlike many artists who complained of censorship, Carter was never told by the WPA what he could or couldn’t paint. Every week he turned his products over to the government in exchange for a $92 monthly stipend and art lessons. He has managed to support himself since almost entirely with his art, as both an artist and art teacher.
Carter’s pieces–then and now–are clearly about finding the beauty in an often ugly world. He works primarily in oil paint and varies his style from abstract to cubism to realism. One of his favorite subjects is women, often dancers, gypsies, and exotic beauties. He believes that he would have received more recognition for his WPA work if he had gone with the flow and painted the kind of images that are now associated with the era. “Most of the things people did during the WPA were about poverty–showing how downtrodden people were in America, and how hard they worked and how little they had. But insofar as painting beautiful things, they were only beautiful in how they were made. That’s all right if that’s what one wants to do, but I think art is for beauty.”
Carter tells a story about one gallery owner who tried to have him sign a contract agreeing to exclusive representation in her gallery. He wrote her a letter and asked, “What are you going to do if I sell a piece out of my studio? Put me in jail? I’m too old for that kind of thing.” The gallery owner waived the contract.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Paul Meredith.
