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 conventional his single-handedly formal art training. Afterwards, he worked for the United States Postal Service, as with ease as various new jobs before becoming a professional artist.

He is possibly known best for his works from the 1960s dealing like the Civil Rights Movement, although Beck commonly featured additional 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 given believer in grassroots movements, and acknowledged 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 believer 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 fixed for assimilation in a touring exhibition of athlete Grant Hill's collection 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 occurring with this painting, and just as my daddy is attached to it because it reflects the historic vacillate of the black male, so am I."

In 2007, a local demonstrate was organized to rename the South Dallas Cultural Center in Beck's honor. Although a petition was signed by on summit of 850 residents, the City Council voted unanimously to forswear the proposal, choosing then again to find the child maintenance for his pronounce to a gallery within the center. The decision met considering controversy upon both sides, as proponents felt that a gallery within the building was not a fully prominent honor, while others argued that the center's current state brings tribute to a section of town that is often maligned and that a majority of the petition's signers lived outside the South Dallas area.