![]() “Charles had them framed and gave many of them to relatives and friends.”īut Charles’ generosity went far beyond giving art away to family members and school pals. “There are at least 20 or 30 of them,” she says. Laurie says that’s when Charles “branched off” with his Icon series: saturated, hauntingly real portraits of notable figures ranging from Frederick Douglass to Sade - each image striking for its obsessive attention to light, wardrobe and skin tone. Paul Saints baseball field with plans to exhibit them at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, and the Jackie Robinson Museum in New York City. The result was 200 paintings - all shown to the public at the St. He worked with other artists on broad strokes and details. Charles researched the colors of their uniforms, eyes and skin tones. Fascinated with America’s Negro League players, he pored over faded pictures of obscure athletes - men and a few women who would never be as well known as Jackie Robinson or Willie Mays. ![]() More than simply pages of a book, it was about creating artwork that would make names and faces real for new generations. “He related that to the artwork he created.”Ĭharles wanted to peel back the sepia-colored images of Black history and give it life. “He spent so much time studying faces in his clinic work,” says Laurie. Charles wasn’t just interested in dermatology he wanted to touch what was under the skin - what makes us feel happiness and sadness. He also discovered that art created a level of empathy within him that connected him closely to his patients and the Twin Cities community in which he grew up. He was even an expert consultant for CNN’s Sanjay Gupta, MD. And the list goes on: best doctor for women, America’s top dermatologist and more. Charles was recognized as one of the nation’s leading authorities on skin of color and among the top 100 African American Newsmakers in the United States, per NBC News’ The Grio. His work was featured in more than 100 scientific and educational publications, and he received awards from the American Academy of Dermatology and the Mayo Clinic. His weekly news column tackled the cultural flash point of skin bleaching creams in the Black community and helped people rebuild their self-esteem after years of suffering from acne scars and cysts. Charles could quickly analyze and give solutions to patients who had been looking for answers for years, like why our immune system creates psoriasis. Skin not only protects us from what’s inside of us but also provides a barrier against the world around us. That unique way of learning gave Charles the ability to break apart and solve issues within the largest, most complex organ in the human body: the skin. Creativity helped him understand that words could be broken apart and reconstituted into sounds, something most people with dyslexia, like himself, can’t do. Charles had the insight to use art to think abstractly about medicine, pulling apart difficult words and re-envisioning them in the form of an elemental table of letters. “He talked about art as a way to escape.” It proved to be vital. “He never had any formal training,” says his wife, Laurie. Photography provided by Laurie Crutchfield
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