Selected Exhibitons

Chicago Artists Group Galleries; 1938

19th International Exhibition of Water Colors; Art Institute of Chicago, IL, 1940

Exhibition of the Art of the American Negro (1851-1940); Tanner Art Galleries, IL; 1940

We Too Look at America [Opening exhibit of paintings by Negro artists of the Illinois Art Project, Work Projects Administration]; South Side Community Art Center, Il, 1941

Exhibition of Negro Artists of Chicago; Howard University Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 1941

Exhibition of Paintings by Negro Artists of America (First Annual Exhibition of Paintings, Sculptures and Prints by Negro Artists); Atlanta University, GA, 1942

American Negro Art, 19th and 20th Centuries; Downtown Galleries, NY, 1942

Third Annual Exhibition of Paintings, Sculptures and Prints by Negro Artists: The Two Generations; Atlanta University, GA, 1944

The Negro Artist Comes of Age: A National Survey of Contemporary American Artists; Albany Museum of Art, NY, 1945

Selected Pieces from the Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Co. Afro-American Art Collection; Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Co., Los Angeles, CA, 1969

WPA and the Black Artist: Chicago and New York; Chicago Public Library, IL, 1978

The Flowering: African-American Artists and Friends in 1940s Chicago: A Look at the South Side Community Art Center; Illinois Art Gallery, Illinois State Museum, 1993

African American Art: The Paul R. Jones Collection; University of Delaware, 1993

In Search of Missing Masters: The Lewis Tanner Moore Collection of African American Art; Woodmere Art Museum, PA, 2009

William Sylvester Carter was born in St. Louis, MO and moved to Chicago in 1930 to study art at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Illinois. In order to earn room and board, Carter worked as a janitor at the Palette and Chisel Club (an all-white club, to which he became an honorary member in 1986).

He was among the artists represented in the American Negro Exposition assembled by Alonzo Aden, with the Harmon Foundation and the WPA in Chicago, 1940.  Carter was awarded first prize for a work in watercolor.  The same year, he exhibited at Howard University Gallery of Art.  Carter also worked for the WPA in Illinois in 1943 and taught art at the historic South Side Community Art Center.

Carter worked in many styles and addressed virtually any subject matter, from traditional portraits to completely non-objective compositions.  Carter humorously and vehemently vowed, until the day he died (at 87), he was too young to have developed a distinct painting style.

Carter’s work, The Card Game, 1950, was included in the exhibition, They Seek A City, Chicago and the Art of Migration (p.87), which was held at the Art Institute of Chicago in 2013.

The Chicago Defender, Sat, Nov 04, 1939