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Charles Sebree was an American painter and playwright best known for his involvement in Chicago's black arts scene of the 1930s and 1940s\

Charles Sebree’s art was not appreciated until much later in his career.  Sebree grew up on the South Side of Chicago, after moving there with his mother in the early 1920’s.  He took an interest in art at an early age, attended public school and sold his first painting at ten years old to the Renaissance Society for twenty-five dollars.  He graduated high school in 1932, attended the Chicago School of Design and the Art Institute of Chicago. 

In 1942 Sebree was drafted into the army was stationed in an all-black division in Illinois.  Here he met his lifelong friend Owen Dodson, a playwright and poet.    Sebree was multi-talented artist and he and Dodson wrote and performed uplifting plays for the soldiers.  The playwrights wrote the “Ballard of Dorie Miller” the first black soldier to receive the prestigious Navy cross for heroism during the attack of Pearl Harbor.