King's Garden #14
1968
Image not available — this artwork is under copyright
View on museum website →Medium
pen, brush, and ink with torn-and-pasted paper on handmade Japanese paper
Dimensions
sheet (irreg.): 26.3 × 36.4 cm (10 3/8 × 14 5/16 in.)
Classification
Drawing
Department
CG-W
Museum
National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Credit
Gift of Funds from Agnes Gund and Avalon Fund
Accession Number
2023.24.2
Art Historical Context
**King's Garden #14**1968) by Jack Whitten is a poignant mixed-media drawing that captures the artist's innovative spirit during a pivotal moment in American history. Created just months after the assassination of Martin Luther King., this work belongs to Whitten's "King's Garden", widely interpreted as a meditative response to grief, racial injustice, and the civil rights struggle. Whitten, an African American artist based in New York, was transitioning from figurative representation to abstraction, blending personal emotion with bold experimentation amid the turbulent late 1960s. The artwor...