Black Monolith II (For Ralph Ellison)

1994

Black Monolith II is part of a series that pays tribute to influential Black figures in simplified forms inspired by stelae, or commemorative stone monuments, from ancient Crete. Jack Whitten created this version, dedicated to the novelist and literary critic Ralph Ellison, the year of the author’s death. The silhouette-like shadow draws parallels with Ellison’s best-known work, Invisible Man, which Whitten described as portraying “the exact dimensions of being Black in America.”