The Charles White Art and Design Scholarship: Empowering Underrepresented Artists at Otis College
Otis College of Art and Design, a leading institution in art and design education, offers the Charles White Art and Design Scholarship, a full, four-year program. This scholarship, named for the influential American artist and educator Charles White (1918-79), celebrates his legacy and honors his enduring influence as an Otis faculty member from 1965 until his passing in 1979. The scholarship is made possible in part through a ten million dollar gift from Mei-Lee Ney, Chair of Otis College’s Board of Trustees, and is launched in cooperation with White’s son, C. Ian White, and The Charles White Archives.
Honoring Charles White's Legacy
Charles White was renowned for his figurative style-which ran counter to abstract movements of the time-as well as his representations of Black life and his commentary on social justice issues as seen through his paintings, drawings, lithographs, and murals. As an instructor, White influenced the work and practice of such celebrated artists as Kerry James Marshall, David Hammons, Richard Wyatt Jr., Alonzo Davis, Judithe Hernández, and Kent Twitchell, all of whom-and more-came to study with him.
C. Ian White co-curated Life Model: Charles White and His Students, a companion exhibition to Charles White: A Retrospective, which the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Modern Art in New York organized in 2018 and was the first major exhibition of White’s work in more than 30 years that also traveled to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art the following year.
David Hammons, who attended Otis from 1968-1972, shared the following on being in Charles White’s classroom: “I stayed in that class a long, long time. But you know it was more about being around a professional, it was like being in the room with [Muhammad] Ali. Or James Baldwin. Just being in that room with that kind of confidence, [that kind of] honesty-that’s what was really happening. Whatever I was drawing wasn’t really that important. The spirit and the energy and the dignity was.”
Expanding Access to Arts Education
The Charles White Art and Design Scholarship is one of many ways Otis College is expanding access to arts education for young creatives in Los Angeles and beyond. The inaugural scholarship was established last year with a $10 million gift from Mei-Lee Ney, chair of Otis’s board of trustees and was intended to support one student from Los Angeles County.
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Otis College President Charles Hirschhorn said, “We are extraordinarily grateful to Mei-Lee for her generous gift and shared commitment to Otis College’s important diversity, equity, and inclusion work and to Ian White for partnering with us to celebrate his father’s work and legacy. The Charles White Art and Design Scholarship is one of many ways Otis College is expanding access to arts education for young creatives in Los Angeles and beyond.”
According to C. Ian White, “This scholarship program creates an opportunity for a young artist to explore their creative gifts. Charles White was twice denied scholarships to further his artistic interests as a young adult solely based on his pigmentation. As an established artist, he was even denied entry to see his own work because of his pigmentation. I appreciate the generous gift by Mei-Lee for her recognition of White’s contribution and acknowledgement of the lack of students of color in artistic institutions. Generations of students were impacted by Charles White’s presence on the Otis campus, who were and continue to be tremendous contributors in their own right to the arts and their communities. This scholarship will be an avenue for young creatives to enter the arts and build a more inclusive cultural landscape.”
Mei-Lee Ney stated, “It’s an honor to provide access for underrepresented students to an art and design education at Otis College, an institution I care about deeply. Charles White opened the door for so many artists of diverse backgrounds through his impactful work and teaching, and it’s wonderful to continue that legacy through this new scholarship."
Scholarship Details and Eligibility
The inaugural scholarship was awarded to an incoming first-year art and design student from an underrepresented group in Los Angeles County in spring 2022 for a fall 2022 start. Beginning in 2023, the scholarship will expand to include one student from Los Angeles County, and one from anywhere in the United States, using the same selection criteria as the Los Angeles County scholarship.
The Charles White Art & Design Scholarship is a four-year, full-tuition award to support artists from under-represented groups.
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Mei-Lee Ney's Commitment to Otis College
A gift of one million dollars by Ney was announced in 2020 in support of the creation of an executive role dedicated to Otis College’s equity, diversity, and inclusion (DEI) strategy. Ney’s combined gifts support the College’s commitment to DEI across several programs, and the College, students, faculty, and staff through the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Ney’s ten million dollar gift is among the largest in Otis College’s history. To commemorate her generosity, a building on the College’s Goldsmith campus in Westchester will be named after Ney.
In addition to chairing the Board of Trustees at Otis College, Ney sits on the Board of the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology; the USC Pacific Asia Museum; the Huntington Library, Art Museums, and Botanical Gardens; and Huntington Hospital. when she was two and was raised by a single mother. A self-made woman, Ney sometimes worked up to five jobs to put herself through college.
Otis College's DEI Initiatives
Otis College has launched several DEI initiatives over the past year, including the announcement of a new Associate Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, who reports to President Hirschhorn and sits on the College’s senior leadership team; the launching of the Black Creatives Institute; and the announcement of a DEI statement that includes Otis’s Ten Points: Standing Up for Equity.
About Otis College of Art and Design
Established in 1918, Otis College of Art and Design is a non-profit 501(c)3 institution and national leader in art and design education. The College’s mission is to educate a diverse community of students to become highly skilled, well-informed, and responsible professionals-empowering them to shape the world. Otis College enrolls approximately 1,200 full-time students, and offers Bachelor of Fine Arts degrees in Communication Arts (Graphic Design and Illustration); Digital Media (Animation, Game and Entertainment Design, and Motion Design); Environmental Design (Architecture/Landscape/Interiors and Interiors + Furniture); Fashion Design, Fine Arts (Painting, Photography, and Sculpture/New Genres); Product Design; and Toy Design. Otis College also awards the Master of Fine Arts degree in both Fine Arts and Graphic Design.
Otis College of Art and Design is located at 9045 Lincoln Blvd, 90045 Los Angeles CA.
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Charles White: Artist, Activist, and Educator
Charles White was an artist, activist, and educator, who is known for his depictions of African-American figures that reflected a sense of heroism, dignity, and pathos. Born in Chicago in 1918 (the same year Otis was founded), White lived in New York as a young man, before moving to Los Angeles in 1956. He became the first Black American faculty member at Otis when he began teaching there in 1965, and was head of the Drawing Department at the time of his death in 1979. As a dedicated teacher and mentor, he had a lasting influence on the scores of students who passed through his classes, the list of whom includes Kerry James Marshall, David Hammons, and Judithe Hernández. White’s own educational and artistic journey was challenged by discrimination and racism. Before he attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, he had received two scholarships to study art at other schools.
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