GRAFFITI ON A WALL IN CHICAGO. SUCH WRITING HAS ADVANCED AND BECOME AN ART FORM, PARTICULARLY IN METROPOLITAN AREAS. BLACK ARTISTS ALSO HAVE USED WALLS ON BUILDINGS IN BLACK COMMUNITIES IN CHICAGO TO PAINT OUTDOOR MURALS. THEY FEEL IT IS A MEANS OF SHARING ART WITH PEOPLE IN THE GHETTO WHO DON’T GO TO THE MUSEUMS. THE ARTISTS ALSO HAVE GIVEN PAINTING LESSONS TO COMMUNITY GROUPS BY DECORATING WALLS ON SOME BUILDINGS IN THEIR COMMUNITIES

Featured on PDR in the collection John H. White’s Photographs of Black Chicago for DOCUMERICA (1973–74)

It’s hard not to read John H. White’s DOCUMERICA series as a love letter to Black Chicago. Whether capturing protesters or checkers players, concerts or chores, White’s work feels animated by a wonder and curiosity for the great breadth of stories and characters he encountered while exploring his adopted home city — “life”, as he put it in the captions to several of his images, “in all its seasons”.