Outstanding Leadership in Queens
2010 Honoree of the Queens Federation of Churches

Charles Lilly

Charles Lilly has been a husband, a father, an art student, an art teacher/instructor, a photo student, a photographer’s assistant, a mentor, a summer NYC Parks Department employee, a Holiday Postal Worker, a jazz enthusiast, a weekend soldier, a commercial artist, an exhibit coordinator, an award winner, an event organizer, a guest lecturer, an organization founder, an activist, an entrepreneur, a friend and companion, a lover, and a believer in God. He’s always been a loving son to his parents (deceased) and that love passed onto his son Eliott... his most impressive and in his words “my greatest work of art.” From his earliest surviving drawing at age 6 until his latest, present day work, one thing is clear: he’s always been an artist.

A graduate of the School of Visual Arts, (where Son Eliott attended on full scholarship, undergraduate through ‘Masters’ completed in 2006). An ‘Illustrator’ from 1970 which has spanned over 38 years, he recently turned his focus to fine art and is creating new works for his life’s pursuit, a series he calls ‘Black Life in America,’ which will chronicle ordinary every day existence of an extraordinary people, from coast to coast and from north to south. He says “It is my intention that when future African American children (or any children) and adults visit various museums, they will see realistic oil painted documents of us (themselves) doing what we do in our everyday lives as a part of this society, long under recorded.”

His work has been displayed in exhibitions both locally (including York College, the Langston Hughes Library, and many NYC public schools), and nationally, including at the White House. His clients include the African Burial Ground, The White House, NYC Mayor’s Office, United States Air Force, AT&T, several television and cable networks, books and magazines. He has been recognized with many honors and awards including the Best in Show Award from The Art League of Long Island in 2009.

Coming from a commercial art background Lilly, has painted a huge assortment of people, places and things. Some of his favorites and most memorable are a painting for the United States Air Force that hangs in the Pentagon (2008), a Christmas Bulb for the White House representing the African Burial Ground in Manhattan (2007), ‘Malcolm X’ (1973), originally painted for Encore Magazine and the next year became the well known cover of The Autobiography of Malcolm X, by Alex Haley. Then too there was ‘Hanibal,’ painted for Budweiser’s Great Kings of Africa series in 1977. More recently there’s ‘Crispus Attucks,’ February, 1999 painted for Crisis Magazine/NAACP, and ‘Mt. Freedom,’ painted for the Congressional Black Caucus as a stage backdrop at its 1992 Convention.

Now the stage is set for the next phase of Lilly’s life, wherein he will decide what images he wishes to leave behind for Eliott’s generation and those yet to come. ‘Black Life’ has never looked so good and held in such high esteem, as in the capable hands of the artist by the name of ‘Charles Lilly.’