Exploding Star (Awake)

Inscriptions

Inscribed, on reverse, upper left, in marker: "Title: 'Exploding Star' / Media: Charcoal / Date: 1965 / Artist: Charles White"

Label

Exploding Star (Awake) powerfully contrasts this figure’s upturned gaze with rapturous flames, conjuring a spiritual state while expressing the dignity characteristic of White’s subjects. An acclaimed African American artist and teacher, White said, “I’ve tried to deal with beauty, the beauty in man and that essentially I feel that man is basically good. I start with this premise in all my work.”

In 1956, White moved from New York to Los Angeles, and his work became less descriptive and more evocative or even symbolic of the Civil Rights Movement and the socially turbulent 1960s. Exploding Star (Awake) shows a compelling way forward in its depiction of Black excellence, power, and potential.

From the 2026 exhibition Inhabiting Historical Time: Slavery and Its Afterlives, curated by Amelia Kahl (Barbara C. & Harvey P. Hood 1918 Senior Curator of Academic Programming) and Alisa Swindell (Associate Curator of Photography)

Course History

WRIT 7 , Religion and Literature: Re-visioning the Natural, Nancy Crumbine, Spring 2015

AAAS 88.19, Contemporary African-American Artists, Michael Chaney, Summer 2021

Studio Art 15.04, Drawing I, Karol Kawiaka, Fall 2024

Art History 40.02, The American Century, Mary Coffey, Spring 2025

Art History 40.02, The American Century, Mary Coffey, Spring 2025

Exhibition History

Heritage Gallery, Los Angeles, California, (no cat. located), 1965.

Inhabiting Historical Time: Slavery and Its Afterlives, Jaffe and Hall Galleries, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, December 20, 2025 - July 11, 2026.

Marks of Distinction: Two Hundred Years of American Drawings and Watercolors from the Hood Museum of Art, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 29-May 29, 2005; Grand Rapids Art Museum, Grand Rapids, Michigan, June 24-September 11, 2005; National Academy Museum, New York City, New York, October 20-December 31, 2005.

Six Black Artists, Beaumont-May Gallery, Hopkins Center Art Galleries, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, (no cat. no.), January 1-31, 1968.

Publication History

Barbara J. MacAdam, Marks of Distinction, Two Hundred Years of American Drawings and Watercolors from the Hood Museum of Art, Manchester, Vermont: Hudson Hills Press, 2005, pp. 214, 274, ill. p. 215, no. 76.

Provenance

ACA Galleries, New York; sold to present collection, 1968.

Catalogue Raisonne

L. H. Gedeon, Introduction to the Work of Charles W. White with a Catalogue Raisonne, Univ. of California, Los Angeles, 1981, No. D187 (as "Awake").

This record is part of an active database that includes information from historic documentation that may not have been recently reviewed. Information may be inaccurate or incomplete. We also acknowledge some language and imagery may be offensive, violent, or discriminatory. These records reflect the institution’s history or the views of artists or scholars, past and present. Our collections research is ongoing.

We welcome questions, feedback, and suggestions for improvement. Please contact us at: Hood.Collections@dartmouth.edu

Subjects