Dark Continent: Andrew Wyeth and James 'Dick' White

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Andrew Wyeth and James 'Dick' White

Learning that Andrew Wyeth died this week made me nostalgic for my father. In one of his many extra jobs, my father was a deliveryman for a pharmacy near where Wyeth lived and Dad used to make deliveries to him. Wyeth said he wanted to paint him. I remember first being very disappointed that my father didn’t want to follow up on this. He’d have a kind of fame.

Later, I was glad Dad didn’t pursue this. I came to think that he would look like some generic old black man. I didn’t think that Wyeth could capture the Dick White I knew. I’d like to put in a picture here from Wyeth for comparison. But here are just three photos of my father the way I like to think about him and here's a link to some Wyeth portraits. [Scroll down about 2/3rds]

Dick at 18 in his Howard High School Class of 1929 photo

Dick with his roses in the backyard

Dick with his young brother

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Academic Biography

Professor White's first book, Sierra Leone’s Settler Women Traders: Women on the Afro-European Frontier, was winner of the Letitia Brown Memorial Publication Price in 1987. Her book with Iris Berger, Women in Sub-Saharan Africa: Restoring Women to History, has become a standard reference text and has been translated into Japanese. Her most recent book is Dark Continent of Our Bodies: Black Feminism and the Politics of Respectability. She has been named a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar in Sierra Leone and a Mellon Scholar and has received a Kidder-Peabody Grant for research in The Gambia. Her appointments have included chair of the Five College Black Studies Executive Committee and member of the Graduate Faculty of the University of Massachusetts. She has a B.A. from Wheaton College, an M.A. in African history, and a Ph.D. in history from Boston University.

Along with her teaching and scholarly career, she has had a distinguished career in academic administration. At NYU, she was appointed Vice Provost in 2005. She advised the Provost on faculty appointments, tenure, and promotion. She worked closely with the Faculty Senators Council to enhance work-life conditions for faculty. She also spearheaded the university’s efforts to diversify the faculty and has responsibility for the Office of Academic Appointments, the Center for Teaching Excellence, and the Faculty Resource Network, a faculty development consortium of 52 institutions of higher education.

From 1998 to 2005, Professor White was dean of NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study, where she greatly increased the school’s visibility and reputation. From 2001-05, she was chair of NYU’s Deans Council. Prior to coming to NYU, she was a professor of history and Black studies at Hampshire College, where she also served as Dean of the School of Social Science and Dean of Faculty. While completing her Ph.D. at Boston University, she was an instructor at the University of Sierra Leone and a research assistant at the Afro-American Studies Center at Boston University.