Charles Elmer Harris

'African Idol' — Mid-Century African-American artist

c. 1950s

Charles Elmer Harris or Beni E. Kosh was born in Cleveland, Ohio. In the 1960s, he legally changed his name to Beni E. Kosh, which translates to the son of Ethiopia. He was a student of Cleveland artist Paul Travis at the Cleveland Institute of Art and later connected to the Sho-Nuff Art Group, a group of African-American artists and the Karamu House artist group, which was a center for artists, writers, dancers and the oldest African-American theater in the United States. Kosh rarely exhibited or sold his work and it was not until after his death that his stylistically diverse oeuvre was rediscovered to receive critical recognition. Kosh’s work is noted in the catalog Yet Still, We Rise: African American Art in Cleveland 1920–1970 and included in exhibitions at the Cleveland State University and the Butler Institute of American Art.