Between September 18 and October 7, 1961, Charles White had a solo exhibition at ACA Gallery, New York City. The gallery was at the time located at 63 East 57th Street, New York. This now rate catalogue accompanied the exhibition. Measuring 11 x 8 1/2 inches, an uncredited work of White's appeared on the cover.
The work was in fact C’est l’amour, 1961, lithograph print, 17 × 8 in. [Translating from the French to mean “It’s love”, C’est l’amour was a hit record by the French singer Edith Piaf, in 1961, which may well have been the inspiration for the title of the print by White]
Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the catalogue was the two-page "FOREWORD" by Lorraine Hansberry, dated September 6, 1961, just a couple of weeks before the exhibition opened. Hansberry owned two of the works in the exhibition.
From Hansberry's text: "Those of us who hold suspect that much of contemporary art cannot sustain or even allow a philosophical base or boast a technical standard which can be practiced and perfected; that it is apparently outraged by the most ancient and wisest of all human questions: “What does it mean?”, have become a strong minded lot. The emperor’s new clothes have not, somehow, captured our imagination.
…In the meantime, we who long for the perpetuation of genuine art, who despise its violation and the frauds saddled upon it, are moved to cherish the artists who hold fast to the legacies of the great historical achievements in art. Consequently, we celebrate and salute the ever deepening humanism and art in the work of an artist such as Charles White.
…. Year after year it has been possible to watch the incalculable growth of Charles White which has now let fall away the once deepseated tendencies to poster-urgency, then, later, to architectural and not quite human, if always arresting, angularity. The humanity of a vision has utterly taken command and, wedded as it is to the drawing tools of a master craftsman, the result is that beauty of statement, that totality, which, in art, defines man everywhere and the indomitable nobility of his potential."
Beyond the double pages on which Hansberry’s text appears, there appears a section a section titled ‘EXHIBITION’ which lists the eleven drawings and four prints in the ACA Gallery show.
DRAWINGS
1. Let the Light Enter
2. Mayibuye, Afrika [collection Lorraine Hansberry]
3. Go Tell It on the Mountain
4. Flying Fish
5. Southern News; Late editiomn
6. Awaken from the Unknowing
7. Birth of Spring
8. C’est l’Amour [Collection Mrs. Frances B. White]
9. Nocturne [Collection Lorraine Hansberry]
10. Move on Up a Little Higher
11. Dawn
PRINTS
12. Mother Courage
13. I’ve Known Roivers
14. Exodus
15. She Who Walks in the Morning
The following note appeared at the foot of this page
…an important portfolio of 10 facsimile reproductions of the recent works of Charles White has just been published and is available for purchase at the Gallery. [The folio was simply titled “10”, the latest folio (10 prints) and title sheet with introduction by Harry Belafonte.]