Ray Charles

Smithsonian Collections

Exhibition Label: Few figures in twentieth-century popular music have exerted more influence than Ray Charles. By developing a style that blended the rhythm-and-blues tradition with gospel and rock and roll, Charles helped shape the music and style of other performers while creating such timeless hits as "Georgia on My Mind" and "Hit the Road, Jack."; Morgan Monceaux, an amateur musician with no formal training in art, used an innovative mixture of collage technique and found materials to produce a series of portraits of jazz greats. Here, discarded plastic sunglasses signify Charles's blindness, while strips of wood represent piano keys and a microphone stand. Handwritten words surround the figure like an aura, providing biographical details. Monceaux's portraits mirror the improvisational vitality of jazz and honor those musicians like Charles, whom the artist considers "the great rule-breakers of our time."

Credit Line: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of Morgan Monceaux

Medium: Mixed media: graphite, pastel, black magic marker, wood, fabric, plastic and adhesive on paper
Dimensions: Sight: 102.6 x 76.5 cm (40 3/8 x 30 1/8"); Mat (Verified): 108.6 x 82.6 x 4.8 cm (42 3/4 x 32 1/2 x 1 7/8"); Frame: 112.4 × 86.4 × 7.6 cm (44 1/4 × 34 × 3")

Topic: Music\Musical instrument\Piano; Costume\Dress Accessory\Eyeglasses\Sunglasses; Costume\Dress Accessory\Tie\Bowtie; Collage; Folk Art; Costume\Dress Accessory\Button; Ray Charles: Male; Ray Charles: Performing Arts\Performer\Musician\Composer; Ray Charles: Performing Arts\Performer\Musician\Singer; Ray Charles: Performing Arts\Performer\Musician\Pianist; Ray Charles: Society and Social Change\Physically disabled\Blind; Portrait

Featured In