Special Exhibition
Holding the Dream in My Hand
Dr. Charles Smith
About the Exhibition
Monumental Witness
Holding the Dream in My Hand brings together the powerful assemblage sculptures and mixed-media works of Dr. Charles Smith — U.S. Army veteran, self-taught artist, and one of the most singular voices in American outsider and folk art. Smith's work is an act of testimony: dense, layered, and unflinching in its reckoning with history.
Drawing on found objects, paint, and an encyclopedic visual language rooted in African American history and the Black experience, Smith constructs figures and environments that refuse to be ignored. His sculptures speak of ancestors, warriors, dreamers, and survivors — of lives lived in the shadow of violence and in the light of resilience.
For Smith, art-making is inseparable from service. His decades of work — created largely outdoors at his home in Aurora, Illinois — constitute one of the most ambitious self-made environments in the country, a living monument to memory, justice, and the dream deferred.
Dr. Charles Smith
United States Army
2022 Solo Exhibition
Dr. Charles Smith
United States Army
2022 Solo Exhibition
About the Artist
Dr. Charles Smith was born in 1940 in Strong, Arkansas, and served in the United States Army before settling in Aurora, Illinois, where he has spent decades creating an extraordinary outdoor sculpture environment known as the African American Heritage Museum and Black Veterans Archive.
A self-taught artist, Smith works in assemblage — combining found objects, paint, and raw materials into figures and installations that chronicle the African American experience from slavery through the present day. His work has been exhibited nationally and is held in major collections of American folk and outsider art.
Smith holds an honorary doctorate in recognition of his contributions to American art and culture. His practice is driven by a profound sense of moral urgency: to bear witness, to honor the forgotten, and to hold the dream of justice and equality in his hands — and in ours.
Explore More
View All Exhibitions