Carroll Sockwell (1943-1992) was a contemporary of Sam Gilliam and a promising young artist whose career was never fully realized, but whose unlimited potential has made him an iconic figure. The Washington Post entitled its 1992 feature on Carroll “The Artist Who Should Be Famous.” Carroll’s sudden death occurred as the Washington Project for the Arts honored his artistic brilliance in a retrospective exhibition, “Carroll Sockwell: Work from Five Decades” (1992).

Carroll emerged on the Washington, D.C. art scene in the 1960s, experienced a rapid ascension in the 1970s, and virtually disappeared in the 1980s. He worked as a curator at the Barnett-Aden Gallery (closed in 1969), the nation’s first museum of African American art. During the height of his career, Carroll held multiple solo shows at major institutions including Corcoran Gallery of Art (D.C.), Brooklyn Museum (NY), Whitney Museum of American Art (NY), and Harry Lunn Gallery (DC).

International Visions has a collection of Carroll’s works from a seminal period in his life: 1970-1984. These pieces include his signature linear abstract drawings in charcoal and color pencil, and shadowboxes holding small, concentrated compositions of metal and found objects.