Arthello Beck

Arthello Beck Jr. (July 17, 1941 – November 5, 2004) was an American artist. He often painted scenes of places he had visited, using a variety of mediums, including oils, watercolors, and charcoal.

Beck was born in Dallas, Texas, and attended Lincoln High School, where he normal his lonely formal art training. Afterwards, he worked for the United States Postal Service, as with ease as various additional jobs since becoming a professional artist.

He is possibly known best for his works from the 1960s dealing later the Civil Rights Movement, although Beck commonly featured further subjects, including children, religion, and human interaction, particularly in the African-American community in the southern regions of the United States.

A longtime resident of Oak Cliff, Beck was a perfect believer in grassroots movements, and normal the Arthello Beck Gallery, which became a centerpiece of the Dallas area art scene in the 1970s and 80s, and was instrumental to the careers of many black artists.

Beck was a zealot of the National Conference of Artists and the Southwest Alliance of African American Artists, and was one of the founders of the Southwest Black Artists Guild.

His paintings and sketches were in the midst of those chosen for incorporation in a touring exhibition of athlete Grant Hill's deposit of African-American artists. Hill, who began collecting art in emulation of his father, Calvin Hill, particularly cited Beck's painting Confrontation (1969) as an influence, saying, "I grew in the works with this painting, and just as my daddy is attached to it because it reflects the historic torment yourself of the black male, so am I."

In 2007, a local raise a fuss was organized to rename the South Dallas Cultural Center in Beck's honor. Although a petition was signed by greater than 850 residents, the City Council voted unanimously to reject the proposal, choosing then again to pay for his read out to a gallery within the center. The decision met subsequently controversy on both sides, as proponents felt that a gallery within the building was not a thoroughly prominent honor, while others argued that the center's current say brings great compliment to a section of town that is often maligned and that a majority of the petition's signers lived outside the South Dallas area.