Kehinde Wiley

Last updated

Kehinde Wiley
Kehinde Wiley (2015) (cropped).jpg
Wiley in 2015
Born (1977-02-28) February 28, 1977 (age 47)
Los Angeles, California, US
Alma mater
Known forPainting, sculpting

Kehinde Wiley (born February 28, 1977) [1] is an American portrait painter based in New York City. He is known for his naturalistic paintings of black people that reference the work of Old Master paintings. In 2017, Wiley was commissioned to paint former President Barack Obama's portrait for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. The Columbus Museum of Art hosted an exhibition of his work in 2007 and describes his paintings as "heroic portraits which address the image and status of young African-American men in contemporary culture." [2]

Contents

Wiley was included in Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2018. [3]

Early life and education

Wiley was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1977. His father, Isaiah D. Obot, [4] is Ibibio, from Nigeria, and his mother, Freddie Mae Wiley, [4] is African-American. He also has a twin brother. [5]

In his childhood, Wiley's mother wanted her children to stay out of the streets and so she encouraged an interest in art through enrollment in after-school art classes. At the age of 11, Wiley and his brother were selected with 48 other children to study briefly at an art conservatory near St. Petersburg in Russia. [6] [7] [8] [4] It was there that Wiley developed his passion for portraiture. Wiley noted that his brother was better at portraiture than he was, and this fueled a sense of competition between them. The siblings would compete to see who could recreate the most realistic images. [7] Upon his return to the US, Wiley continued studying art [9] and attended high school at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. [10] [11]

Kehinde Wiley sculpture Kehinde Wiley sculpture.jpg
Kehinde Wiley sculpture

Wiley and his siblings were raised by their mother, Freddie Mae Wiley. Their father, Isaiah D. Obot, was a Nigerian student who came to the US on scholarship. He returned to Nigeria upon finishing his studies, [12] leaving Freddie to raise the couple's six children on her own. [13] Wiley has said that his family survived on welfare checks and the limited income earned by his mother's "thrift store"—which consisted of a patch of sidewalk outside their home. [14] At the age of 20, Wiley traveled to Nigeria to meet his father and explore his family roots. [15]

In 1999, Wiley earned his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. He received a scholarship to attend the Yale University School of Art, and completed his MFA at Yale in 2001. In art school, Wiley attributed his most important lesson to focusing on creating art that he truly wanted to make—not art that his professors wanted him to make. [12] [1]

Wiley received an honorary DFA from Yale University in 2024. [13]

Career

Residency and inspiration

Kehinde Wiley is an American portrait painter who paints monumental works of art that captivate audiences with bold colors and strong views on racial power. [14] He is one of many contemporary artists throughout the world who hopes to shift racial power throughout the media using his art. [15] When he was commissioned to paint the former President of the United States at that time, Barack Obama, Wiley became even more popular, showing his art in multiple international shows and exhibiting in places like Cuba, Nigeria, and Los Angeles. [16]

The beginnings of Wiley's now-famous portraits can be traced back to his time in Harlem, New York, during his residency at the Studio Museum. It was at this time he came upon a crumpled mugshot released by the New York Police Department. [17] On it was a photo of an African American man in his twenties with his basic personal information in order for the man to be identified. Wiley held onto this mugshot and it would inspire some of his future work, including Conspicuous Fraud Series #1 (Eminence), as well as a recreation of this mugshot in Mugshot Study (2006, Plate 8). [18]

When later commenting on his fascination with the mugshot and its influence in his art, Wiley noted that when he found it on the street, it altered his view of what portraiture could be and solidified his feelings about the portrayal of black men in the world. [18] Wiley saw that there was something lacking in this portrayal and turned to his background in classical paintings. His comparisons between this new type of portraiture and the ones he studied from the eighteenth century sparked inspiration and led Wiley to create a combination of his modern portraiture and classic styles from history. [18]

Wiley's Rumors of War is a bronze sculpture that commemorates African American youth lost to the social and political battles being waged throughout the nation. [19]

The world stage

Although Wiley's portraits were initially based on photographs of young men from the streets of Harlem, Wiley began to expand to an international view, using models found in urban backdrops from around the world including Mumbai, Senegal, Dakar and Rio de Janeiro. This immense body of work became known as The World Stage. Models are dressed in their everyday clothing and asked to assume poses found in artwork from their location's history. It's a juxtaposition of "the 'old' inherited by the 'new' – who often have no visual inheritance of which to speak." [20] Wiley says this instantly sparks a conversation that is equally emotional as it is intellectual. [20]

Wiley chooses countries that he believes are on the "conversation block" in the 21st century to be represented in The World Stage. These have included Brazil, Nigeria, India, and China because Wiley states that he understands all of these as "points of anxiety and curiosity and production" to the world. [20] As he has continued to paint models from around the world, he has increasingly painted them not based on Western painting traditions and styles but on the historic artistic styles from each of these own countries. [20]

Barack Obama presidential portrait

In October 2017, it was announced that Wiley had been chosen by Barack Obama to paint an official portrait of the former president to appear in the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery "America's Presidents" exhibition. [21] Amy Sherald was simultaneously chosen by Michelle Obama for the First Lady portrait. They were the first Black artists to paint an American President's portrait and a First Lady's portrait, respectively.

Obama's portrait took Wiley over two years, from the first conversation about the commission to the unveiling which took place on February 12, 2018, at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. This gallery is where past president portraits have been displayed outside the White House. [22] While other presidential portraits show their subjects in a more realistic representation with an office in order to communicate their authority, [22] Wiley depicted Obama seated casually on an antique chair, seemingly floating among foliage. Each flower points to a location which represents an event that happened in Obama's life, such as the chrysanthemum, the official flower of the city of Chicago (where he was elected as senator); African lilies, representing Kenya to show respect to Obama's father, who died when he was a young adult; and jasmine, representing Obama's childhood in Hawaii with his grandparents. [23]

The inspiration for Obama's pose came from the photography session conducted with Obama in preparation for the portrait. Wiley recalled a moment of repose in between shots when Obama was essentially as he is depicted in the portrait, a pose the artist felt was authentic to Obama.

During the unveiling of Obama's portrait, Wiley stated in an interview that Obama wanted "a very relaxed, man-of-the-people representation" and Wiley created that image through small details: an open collar, the absence of a tie, and the perception that the President's body was physically moving towards the viewer instead of appearing aloof. [7] Wiley explained that Obama and the foreground of the plants are battling over who takes the primary space in the portrait, which Wiley hoped would communicate that Obama is more central than just his story and experiences that helped contour his life. [24] [25]

President Obama felt that Wiley's work was able to elevate an ordinary person to look like royalty and to lift them up so that they belong as a part of American life, reflecting Obama's belief that politics should be about the country unfolding from the bottom up and not the other way around. [26]

Wiley also mentioned in the unveiling of Obama's portrait that he went to museums in Los Angeles and noticed that there weren't many artworks that display African Americans; he wanted to change that. He hoped that one day the artworks that he creates can inspire future African American generations who look up at the museum wall and see someone who looks like them being displayed at the museum, especially the portrait of the first Black American president. [24] After the unveiling of Wiley's portrait of the President and Amy Sherald's portrait of the First Lady, the Smithsonian National museum saw an increase in the number of visitors from 1.1 to 2.1 million people. [22]

Some conservative commentators criticized the selection of Wiley for the commission because he had earlier produced two painting variations of Judith Beheading Holofernes, in which he depicts African-American women holding the severed heads of White women. [27] [28] [29]

Rumors of War series and statue

Wiley's initial series of works titled Rumors of War were commissioned in 2005 and depicted contemporary men, as opposed to the 'heroic' equestrians in the originals, wearing sports team jerseys and Timberland boots, with Wiley deciding to keep the original titles. [8]

Kehinde Wiley's sculpture 'Rumors of War' in Times Square, 2019 KehindeWiley.2019jpeg.jpg
Kehinde Wiley's sculpture 'Rumors of War' in Times Square, 2019

Wiley revisited this idea after visiting Richmond, Virginia, where he became interested in the Confederate monuments on Monument Avenue and the idea of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy existing within a modern "hipster" town. In response to the monuments, Wiley decided to create Rumors of War, a thirty foot tall statue of a young, black man sporting jeans, Nike high-tops and dreadlocks, [8] modeled on Monument Avenue's statue of J. E. B. Stuart. Rumors of War was unveiled in Times Square before being moved to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, a mile away from the J. E. B. Stuart statue which inspired it and the institute that commissioned it. [30] [31] [32] At 27 feet high and 16 feet wide, it is his largest work to date, as of 2019. [33] Rumors of War was delivered in collaboration with Times Square Arts, Sean Kelly Gallery and UAP. [34] [35]

Other work

Wiley had a retrospective in 2016 at the Seattle Art Museum. [36] In May 2017, he had an exhibit, Trickster, at the Sean Kelly Gallery, New York City. The exhibit featured 11 paintings depicting contemporary black artists. [37] Wiley opened a studio in Beijing, China, in 2006 to use several helpers to do brushstrokes for his paintings. [38] Initially, outsourcing work to China had been done to cut costs but by 2012, Wiley told New York magazine that low costs was no longer the reason. [38] Critics have long wondered about the extent to which Wiley's paintings are painted by Wiley himself. When asked if one could visit his studio in China to watch him paint, the artist declined. Wiley's Beijing studio is managed by Ain Cocke, who has worked for him for close to a decade, first as a painting assistant and now as a manager. He is an accomplished painter, though far less successful commercially. [39]

In 2021, Wiley's work Go became a permanent for Penn Station's concourse in New York City. The stained-glass work depicts black break-dancers on a background of the sky with clouds. [8] The piece is inspired by the 18th century ceiling frescoes of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. [40] The work is his first permanent, site-specific installation in the medium of glass. [41] He also curated a group show of African arts featuring Nigerian artist Oluwole Omofemi at the Jeffrey Deitch Gallery in Los Angeles. [42]

Imagery, symbolism, and themes

Reimagining the Old Masters with Black protagonists

Saint Adelaide (2014) is a stained glass window designed by Wiley. It was inspired by an 1843 window of Saint Adelaide designed by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres for the Chapel of Saint Ferdinand, Paris. Saint Adelaide, Kehinde Wiley 2014 - Stained Glass Museum.jpg
Saint Adelaide (2014) is a stained glass window designed by Wiley. It was inspired by an 1843 window of Saint Adelaide designed by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres for the Chapel of Saint Ferdinand, Paris.

Wiley often references Old Masters paintings for the pose of a figure. [44] Wiley's paintings often blur the boundaries between traditional and contemporary modes of representation. Rendering his figures in a realistic mode—while making references to specific Old Master paintings—Wiley creates a fusion of period styles and influences, ranging from French Rococo, Islamic architecture, and West African textile design, to urban hip hop and the "Sea Foam Green" of a Martha Stewart Interiors color swatch. Wiley depicts his slightly larger than life-size figures in a heroic manner, giving them poses that connote power and spiritual awakening. Wiley's portrayal of masculinity is filtered through these poses of power and spirituality.

In a number of his paintings, Wiley inserts black protagonists into Old Master paintings. In 2007 he reimagined Théodore Géricault's early-nineteenth-century The Charging Chasseur with a young black man in casual streetwear as the sword-wielding hussar in his painting Officer of the Hussars. [45]

Similarly, his Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps (2005) is based on Napoleon Crossing the Alps (1800) by Jacques-Louis David, often regarded as a "masterpiece." Wiley restaged it with an African rider wearing modern army fatigues and a bandanna. Wiley "investigates the perception of blackness and creates a contemporary hybrid Olympus in which tradition is invested with a new street credibility". [46] While creating the work Wiley attempted to use real horses to model and found that the proportions between man and horse in the original work to be unrealistic. The purpose of art during David's time was to serve as propaganda. Although seemingly naturalistic, both Wiley's and David's portraits feature rider's who are disproportionate to their steed, because "men look a lot smaller on real horses." Wiley claims to be simultaneously drawn to the illusion used in Old Masters paintings while also wanting to expose them: "The appeal, I suppose, is that, in a world so unmasterable and so unknowable, you give the illusion or veneer of the rational, of order—these strong men, these powerful purveyors of truth. And so this thing that I do is in a strange sense being drawn toward that flame and wanting to blow it out at once." [47]

His portraits are based on photographs of young men whom Wiley sees on the street. He has painted men from Harlem's 125th Street, as well as the South Central Los Angeles neighborhood where he was born. Dressed in street clothes, his models were asked to assume poses from the paintings of Renaissance masters, such as Titian and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Wiley describes his approach as "interrogating the notion of the master painter, at once critical and complicit". His figurative paintings "quote historical sources and position young black men within that field of power". In this manner, his paintings fuse history and style in a unique and contemporary manner. His art has been described as having homoerotic qualities. [48] Wiley has used a sperm motif as symbolic of masculinity and gender. [49] [50] [51]

This reimagining was also seen in Wiley's VH1 commissioned piece, where he was asked to paint honorees for the 2005 Hip Hop Honours program. Wiley depicted the rapper Ice T as Napoleon and Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five as a Dutch Civic guard company from the 17th century. [52]

Sometimes Wiley changes the gender of figures portrayed in the older works. In Portrait of a Couple from 2012, he replaces the couple (man and woman) depicted in the original painting from 1610 with a pair of young men. [53] The same year, he exhibited two variations on the Judith Beheading Holofernes Biblical story famously painted by Caravaggio, [54] replacing the male Holofernes with female figures. New York magazine described one of these as depicting "a tall, elegant black woman in a long blue dress. In one hand, she holds a knife. In the other, a cleanly severed brunette female head". Wiley said about this work: "It's sort of a play on the 'kill whitey' thing". [38] A second painting entitled Judith Beheading Holofernes [55] also features a modern-day black woman as Judith and a white woman as Holofernes, challenging the viewer's expectations of this familiar motif, inviting political readings, and "bending a violent image from art history—which is rife with them [...]—to the needs of a country that is reexamining the violent underpinnings of even its most benign-seeming traditions." [56] Art critic Walter Robinson remarks that this reimagining of the Judith/Holofernes story "suggests, with a jovial brutality, that Judith would prefer to be done with white standards of beauty." [57]

Masculinity and femininity

Much of Wiley's work focuses on male figures. This is an intentional choice by Wiley to reflect on the lack of female figures in art history in portraits due to societal norms. [58] The way in which Wiley positions his figures and how he paints them switches the feminine and masculine roles. He emphasizes features of his Black figures that eroticizes them in a way women were traditionally portrayed. He focuses on their bodies, includes motifs like sperm that reference their vitality, and poses them in vulnerable positions. [58] The floral and decorative backgrounds put into question the idea of masculinity. The patterns of lace and flowers are often associated with femininity and by submerging his male figures in these ornate backgrounds, Wiley acknowledges the beauty and youth of his subjects. [59]

Power

Wiley's intent when he began to create these ornate portraits was to re-image Black men's depiction in art. [58] The way he has his models pose, in similar positions and stances as the original figures in classical paintings, is meant to act as commentary for the historical power dynamic of African American men and white men. In the recreation of these 18th century portraits, modern black men that he meets on the streets are taking the place of the original subjects, they are assuming their position or power. He paints them as people who are worthy of being noticed, rather than background elements or in subservient positions. Wiley is also creating a portrayal of African American men that is not often seen in the media today. Wiley challenges a perception that has been continually pushed onto society. Rather than depict them as angry or tough, he creates portraits where the figures are dignified, confident, and at times vulnerable. The figures are in poses in ways that do not always align with what is considered masculine for black men today. [59]

Background imagery

Wiley's portrait paintings are known for their bright and colorful backgrounds. These intricate backgrounds are purposefully different from the portraits they are based on. The original backdrops of the classical portraits Wiley uses for his references are full of sweeping estates, their families, and other possessions. [60] Wiley instead creates detailed backgrounds full of bright patterns that at times enter the foreground in front of the figures. His intent is to create a background that just like his figures is competing to be noticed and blend the two in order to elevate the figures. [60] The background imagery is meant to add a layered complexity to the work. [58]

Wiley draws inspiration for these designs from historical work from the Rococo and Neoclassical art period as well as elaborate wallpapers. [58] The original portraits that Wiley recreates would have hung in lavish homes of the wealthy amongst other extremely detailed ornaments to further enhance the wealth of the homeowners. [58] By replicating these patterns and motifs from opulent decor and other elements of interior design and encapsulating his figures within them, Wiley is recreating a similar sense of wealth with his portraits. [59] Viewers are led to re-contextualize their view of the urban figures as they associate them with the lavish backdrops. [58]

Recognition and honors

In October 2011, Wiley received the Artist of the Year Award from the New York City Art Teachers Association/United Federation of Teachers. He also received Canteen Magazine '. Two of Wiley's paintings were featured on the top of 500 New York City taxi cabs in early 2011 as a collaboration with the Art Production Fund.

Wiley is featured in a commercial on the USA Network as a 2010 Character Honoree. [61]

Puma AG commissioned Wiley to paint four portraits of prominent African soccer players. Patterns from his paintings were incorporated into Puma athletic gear. [62] The complete series, Legends of Unity: World Cup 2010, was exhibited in early 2010 at Deitch Projects in New York City. [63]

His work was exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery as part of the Recognize exhibit in 2008. [64] Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic, was a retrospective at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond, VA), in the summer of 2016 (June 11 – September 5). It displayed nearly 60 of his paintings and sculptures.

Sexual assault allegations

In May 2024, Wiley was accused of sexual assault by artist Joseph Awuah-Darko, who said that Wiley had assaulted him twice in June 2021 during and after a dinner event in Ghana. Awuah-Darko claimed that he was first "inappropriately groped" shortly after meeting Wiley, and then was subject to a "much more severe and violent" assault later that day. Awuah-Darko said that he had not initially recognized the incident as assault and that he had not reported it due to attitudes toward LGBT rights in Ghana. [65] [66] [67] Awuah-Darko also used his Instagram account to share testimonials from others who corroborated his allegations. [67]

Wiley denied the accusations, stating that the two had been in a "brief, consensual relationship". Lawyers for Wiley sent Awuah-Darko a cease and desist letter demanding the removal of his "categorically false and defamatory" Instagram posts. [65] [66] [67] Wiley's representatives also shared a series of text messages between the two men, which they said had been sent in the months after the alleged assault, in which Awuah-Darko asked to meet Wiley again. [65] [66]

Following Awuah-Darko's posts, three more individuals accused Wiley of sexual violence: activist Derrick Ingram, artist Nathaniel Lloyd Richards, and photographer Terrell Armistead. [68] Ingram said that Wiley had raped and sexually assaulted him in September 2021 during a brief relationship between the two. [69] Richards claimed that Wiley had groped him on a date in 2019. [70] Armistead accused Wiley of groping him and "performing forced oral penetration" during a 2010 encounter at Wiley's apartment. [71] Wiley's four accusers said they planned to file a class action lawsuit against him. [71]

In response, Wiley said that the allegations were "completely false" and a "social media-driven fabrication" that distracted from his traveling exhibition "An Archaeology of Silence". [69] Wiley also denied ever meeting Armistead and disputed certain elements of Armistead's story. [71]

Several art museums said they would suspend or cancel their plans to host future exhibitions from Wiley, including the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Pérez Art Museum Miami, and the Joslyn Art Museum. [69] [72] The National Coalition Against Censorship called the allegations against Wiley "serious and concerning" but criticized the museums' decision, arguing for placing problematic artists in context rather than canceling them. [73] [74]

Personal life

Wiley has kept his personal life private but identifies as a gay man. [75] [76] He has said that his sexuality "is not black and white. I am a gay man who has drifted. I am not bi. I've had perfectly pleasant romances with women, but they weren't sustainable. My passion wasn't there. I would always be looking at guys." [4]

Between 2014 and 2018, he created Black Rock Senegal in Yoff, an artist residence designed by Senegalese architect Abib Djenne. [77] [8]

List of works

Solo exhibitions

Collections

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Artemisia Gentileschi</span> Italian painter (1593 – c. 1656)

Artemisia Lomi or Artemisia Gentileschi was an Italian Baroque painter. Gentileschi is considered among the most accomplished 17th-century artists, initially working in the style of Caravaggio. She was producing professional work by the age of 15. In an era when women had few opportunities to pursue artistic training or work as professional artists, Gentileschi was the first woman to become a member of the Accademia di Arte del Disegno in Florence and she had an international clientele.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chuck Close</span> American painter (1940–2021)

Charles Thomas Close was an American painter, visual artist, and photographer who made massive-scale photorealist and abstract portraits of himself and others. Close also created photo portraits using a very large format camera. He adapted his painting style and working methods in 1988, after being paralyzed by an occlusion of the anterior spinal artery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elizabeth Peyton</span> American painter

Elizabeth Joy Peyton is an American contemporary artist working primarily in painting, drawing, and printmaking. Best known for figures from her own life and those beyond it, including close friends, historical personae, and icons of contemporary culture, Peyton's portraits have regularly featured artists, writers, musicians, and actors.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye is a British painter and writer, of Ghanaian heritage. She is best known for her portraits of imaginary subjects, or ones derived from found objects, which are painted in muted colours. Her work has contributed to the renaissance in painting the Black figure. Her paintings often are presented in solo exhibitions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barkley L. Hendricks</span> American painter

Barkley L. Hendricks was a contemporary American painter who made pioneering contributions to Black portraiture and conceptualism. While he worked in a variety of media and genres throughout his career, Hendricks' best known work took the form of life-sized painted oil portraits of Black Americans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Portraits of presidents of the United States</span> Official portraits for U.S. presidents

Beginning with painter Gilbert Stuart's portrait of George Washington, it has been tradition for the president of the United States to have an official portrait taken during their time in office, most commonly an oil painting. This tradition has continued to modern times, although since the adoption of photography as a widely used and reliable technology, the official portrait may also be a photograph.

Thomas Patrick Campbell is the director and CEO of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, overseeing the de Young and Legion of Honor museums. He served as the director and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art between 2009 and 2017. On 30 June 2017, Campbell stepped down as director and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art under pressure and accepted the Getty Foundation's Rothschild Fellowship for research and study at both the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles and at Waddesdon Manor, in the UK.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tamara Natalie Madden</span> Jamaican-born painter and mixed-media artist

Tamara Natalie Madden was a Jamaican-born painter and mixed-media artist working and living in the United States. Madden's paintings are allegories whose subjects are the people of the African diaspora.

Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps is an equestrian portrait of a youthful black male painted by the contemporary artist Kehinde Wiley in 2005. It is based on Jacques-Louis David’s 1801 equestrian portrait, Napoleon Crossing the Alps. This painting was chosen by a man who Wiley had approached in the streets. The basic composition of Wiley's painting is the same as the 200-year-old painting it was based on, and has many of the same elements. The modern painting has a decorative background rather than the battlefield background. It is in the Brooklyn Museum.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Taylor (artist)</span> American painter

Henry Taylor is an American artist and painter who lives and works in Los Angeles, California. He is best known for his acrylic paintings, mixed media sculptures, and installations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Titus Kaphar</span> American painter

Titus Kaphar is an American contemporary painter and filmmaker whose work reconfigures and regenerates art history to include African-American subjects. His paintings are held in the collections of Museum of Modern Art, Brooklyn Museum, Yale University Art Gallery, New Britain Museum of American Art, Seattle Art Museum, Mississippi Museum of Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and University of Michigan Museum of Art.

<i>Judith and Her Maidservant</i> (Detroit) Painting by Artemisia Gentileschi

Judith and Her Maidservant is one of four paintings by the Italian baroque artist Artemisia Gentileschi that depicts the biblical story of Judith and Holofernes. This particular work, executed in about 1623 to 1625, now hangs in the Detroit Institute of Arts. The narrative is taken from the deuterocanonical Book of Judith, in which Judith seduces and then murders the general Holofernes. This precise moment illustrates the maidservant Abra wrapping the severed head in a bag, moments after the murder, while Judith keeps watch. The other three paintings are now shown in the Museo di Capodimonte in Naples, the Palazzo Pitti in Florence, and the Musée de la Castre in Cannes.

Amy Sherald is an American painter. She works mostly as a portraitist depicting African Americans in everyday settings. Her style is simplified realism, involving staged photographs of her subjects. Since 2012, her work has used grisaille to portray skin tones, a choice she describes as intended to challenge conventions about skin color and race.

<i>President Barack Obama</i> (painting) Painting by Kehinde Wiley

President Barack Obama is an oil-on-canvas portrait of Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, completed by the artist Kehinde Wiley in 2018 for the National Portrait Gallery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">First Lady Michelle Obama (painting)</span> Portrait of Michelle Obama by Amy Sherald

First Lady Michelle Obama, initially titled Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama, is a portrait of former First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama, painted by the artist Amy Sherald. Unveiled in 2018, it hangs in the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) in Washington, D.C. The six-by-five-foot oil-on-linen painting shows Obama, rendered in Sherald's signature grisaille, resting her chin lightly on her hand, as a geometric print dress flows outward filling the frame against a sky-blue background.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph Awuah-Darko</span> Musical artist

Joseph Nana Kwame Awuah-Darko, also known as Okuntakinte is a Ghanaian artist. He started his music career professionally in late 2015 when he was signed with Meister Music Management which also manages artists like Mr. Eazi. He released his major hit Melanin Girls in January 2016, which was received with appreciation.

Dewey Crumpler, is an American painter and educator. He taught at the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) for many years, where he held the title of associate professor.

Go is the title of a pair of artworks by the American artist Kehinde Wiley. Both pieces depict young black people set against blue skies. The first piece, a series of oil paintings executed in 2003, are in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum; the second is a stained-glass triptych designed for the ceiling of the Moynihan Train Hall at Pennsylvania Station in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.

Jeff Sonhouse is an American painter, known for his mixed media portraiture dealing with Black identity. He is African American.

References

  1. ↑ "Kehinde Wiley", Artnet. Retrieved October 13, 2010.
  2. ↑ Villarreal, Ignacio. "Kehinde Wiley: Columbus To Open". Art Daily.
  3. ↑ "Kehinde Wiley: The World's 100 Most Influential People". Time. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
  4. 1 2 3 4 "Kehinde Wiley Biography, Life & Quotes". The Art Story. Retrieved March 11, 2021.
  5. ↑ "Artist Talk: Kehinde Wiley". YouTube. October 26, 2018. Retrieved January 13, 2019.
  6. ↑ Wiley, Kehinde, "On studying art in the forests of St. Petersburg at age 12, his hyperdecorative style, and combining grandeur with chance", Wall Street Journal , April 26, 2012.
  7. 1 2 3 Cunningham, Vinson (October 22, 2018). "Kehinde Wiley on Painting Masculinity and Blackness, from President Obama to the People of Ferguson". The New Yorker.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 "Kehinde Wiley | Biography, Art, Portraits, Paintings, Sculptures, & Facts". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved March 11, 2021.
  9. ↑ Cunningham, Vinson (October 22, 2018). "Kehinde Wiley on Painting Masculinity and Blackness, from President Obama to the People of Ferguson". The New Yorker . Retrieved October 22, 2018.
  10. ↑ "'Antonovich Amphitheatre' dedicated at LACHSA > LACOE". www.lacoe.edu. May 21, 2015. Archived from the original on November 15, 2022. Retrieved February 2, 2022.
  11. ↑ Boehm, Mike (April 6, 2010). "L.A. County High School for the Arts has celebrity lineup to celebrate its 25th anniversary". LA Times Blogs - Culture Monster. Los Angeles Times.
  12. ↑ "Kehinde Wiley Paintings, Bio, Ideas". The Art Story. Retrieved August 11, 2022.
  13. ↑ "Kehinde Wiley '01 M.F.A. | Yale 2024". yale2024.yale.edu. Retrieved May 20, 2024.
  14. ↑ Lucas, Julian (December 26, 2022). "How the Artist Kehinde Wiley Went from Picturing Power to Building It". The New Yorker. ISSN   0028-792X . Retrieved May 24, 2023.
  15. ↑ "Untitled Document". login.libris.mtsac.edu. Retrieved May 24, 2023.
  16. ↑ "Five years after his Obama portrait, Kehinde Wiley is taking his art everywhere all at once". ABC News. Retrieved May 24, 2023.
  17. ↑ Miller, P.D. (2007). "New World Portraiture: Kehinde Wiley". Art Asia Pacific. 55: 140–143.
  18. 1 2 3 Tsai, Eugenie (February 20, 2015). Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic (Illustrated ed.). Prestel. ISBN   978-3791354309.
  19. ↑ "Sculpture Created by Kehinde Wiley for VMFA - VMFA". November 12, 2019. Retrieved May 24, 2023.
  20. 1 2 3 4 Wiley, Kehinde. "Kehinde Wiley". Kehinde Wiley Studio.
  21. ↑ Smith, Roberta (October 16, 2017). "Why the Obamas' Portrait Choices Matter". New York Times. Retrieved December 24, 2017.
  22. 1 2 3 Caragol, Taína; Moss, Dorothy; Powell, Richard; Sajet, Kim (2020). "The Obama Portraits". ProQuest Ebook Central. Princeton University Press.
  23. ↑ Vankin, Deborah (January 24, 2020). "Obama Portraits to Tour in Summer '21; the Smithsonian Says the Portraits of Barack and Michelle Will Visit Five Cities, Including Los Angeles' LACMA". Los Angeles Times. ProQuest   2344081883.
  24. 1 2 "Barack and Michelle Obama portraits unveiled at Smithsonian". YouTube . February 12, 2018. Archived from the original on December 21, 2021. Retrieved June 4, 2020.
  25. ↑ Says, Simon (February 13, 2018). "President Obama's speech at the portrait unveiling at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery…". Medium. Retrieved June 4, 2020.
  26. ↑ Pogrebin, Robin (February 12, 2018). "Obama Portrait Artists Merged the Everyday and the Extraordinary". ProQuest   2001133419.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  27. ↑ "Obama portrait artist's past work depicted black women decapitating white women". The Telegraph. February 13, 2018. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
  28. ↑ Levine, Jon (February 12, 2018). "Obama Portrait Artist Kehinde Wiley Once Painted Black Women Decapitating White Women". Yahoo Entertainment. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
  29. ↑ "FACT CHECK: Did Obama's Portraitist Paint an Image of a Black Woman Holding the Severed Head of a White Person?". Snopes.com. February 13, 2018. Retrieved February 14, 2018.
  30. ↑ Curran, Colleen (June 20, 2019). "VMFA acquires massive sculpture by artist Kehinde Wiley, created in response to Confederate monuments". Richmond-Times Dispatch. Retrieved June 25, 2019.
  31. ↑ Ugwu, Reggie (September 27, 2019). "Kehinde Wiley's Times Square Monument: That's No Robert E. Lee". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved October 1, 2019.
  32. ↑ "Rumors of War statue unveiled in Richmond, Virginia", BBC News , December 11, 2019.
  33. ↑ Moynihan, Ellen, and Larry McShane, "'Rumors of War' statue makes Times Square debut, provides a response to Confederate monuments in its future home of Richmond, Va.", New York Daily News , September 27, 2019.
  34. ↑ "UAP". www.uapcompany.com. Retrieved January 25, 2021.
  35. ↑ "Kehinde Wiley Taps Creative Studio UAP for First Public Artwork, Set for Times Square". HYPEBEAST. July 12, 2019. Retrieved January 25, 2021.
  36. ↑ Romano, Tricia (February 4, 2016). "A new republic: Kehinde Wiley comes to Seattle Art Museum". Seattle Times. Retrieved February 4, 2016.
  37. ↑ Frank, Priscilla (May 26, 2017). "Kehinde Wiley Paints The Formative Black Artists Of Our Time". Huffington Post. Retrieved June 22, 2017.
  38. 1 2 3 Beam, Christopher (April 22, 2012). "Outsource to China - While riffing on the Western canon. Kehinde Wiley's global reach". New York Magazine. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
  39. ↑ Mason, Wyatt (April 10, 2013). "How Kehinde Wiley Makes A Masterpiece". GQ .
  40. ↑ "9 New Public Art Installations in NYC March 2021 - Page 22 of 39". Untapped New York. March 2, 2021. Retrieved March 12, 2021.
  41. ↑ "Kehinde Wiley "Go" - News - Roberts Projects LA". www.robertsprojectsla.com. Retrieved March 12, 2021.
  42. ↑ "Kehinde Wiley Curates a Group Exhibition Celebrating Contemporary African Portraiture". November 19, 2021.
  43. ↑ "Saint Adelaide". The Stained Glass Museum. Retrieved June 4, 2024.
  44. ↑ Hurst, Roy. "Young, Gifted, and Black: Painter Kehinde Wiley", NPR, June 1, 2005.
  45. ↑ "Kehinde Wiley, Officer of the Hussars, 2007". Detroit Institute of Arts. Retrieved September 3, 2020.
  46. ↑ Hans Werner Holzwarth, ed. (2008). Art Now, Vol. 3: A cutting-edge selection of today's most exciting artists. Taschen. p. 512. ISBN   9783836505116.
  47. ↑ Cunningham, Vinson (October 22, 2018). "Kehinde Wiley on Painting Masculinity and Blackness, from President Obama to the People of Ferguson". The New Yorker.
  48. ↑ Kennicott, Philip (February 12, 2018). "The Obamas' portraits are not what you'd expect and that's why they're great". The Washington Post.
  49. ↑ Clemans, Gayle. "Kehinde Wiley, Napoleon Leading the Army over the Alps". smarthistory.org. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
  50. ↑ Quito, Anne (April 3, 2015). "The painter who remixes classical European art with black urban youth". Quartz. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
  51. ↑ Smith, Roberta (September 4, 2008). "A Hot Conceptualist Finds the Secret of Skin". The New York Times. Retrieved February 13, 2018.
  52. ↑ "Kehinde Wiley Biography, Life & Quotes". The Art Story. Retrieved March 11, 2021.
  53. ↑ Mason, Wyatt (April 10, 2013). "How Kehinde Wiley Makes A Masterpiece". GQ . Retrieved September 3, 2020.
  54. ↑ "Judith and Holofernes". North Carolina Museum of Art. June 7, 2018. Retrieved June 18, 2020.
  55. ↑ Solomon, Deborah (January 28, 2015). "Kehinde Wiley Puts a Classical Spin on His Contemporary Subjects". New York Times. Retrieved June 18, 2020.
  56. ↑ Howe, Brian (March 7, 2018). "What the Recent Backlash Against Kehinde Wiley's Work at NCMA Gets Wrong About Art's Past and Present". Indy Week. Retrieved September 3, 2020.
  57. ↑ Robinson, Walter (May 8, 2014). "The "Black Eye" and the Postmodernist Art World". Indy Week. Retrieved September 5, 2020.
  58. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Sanders, Sophie. (2013). Spirited Pattern and Decoration in Contemporary Black Atlantic Art (Thesis). Temple University.
  59. 1 2 3 A., Shareef, Shahrazad (2010). The power of décor : Kehinde Wiley's interventions into the construction of black masculine identity. OCLC   876900599.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  60. 1 2 Okoro, Enuma (January 28, 2022). "Artist Kehinde Wiley: 'I wanted to interrupt the history of these paintings'". The Financial Times Limited.
  61. ↑ "Art: Kehinde Wiley" Archived March 15, 2010, at the Wayback Machine , USA Network. Retrieved October 13, 2010.
  62. ↑ "PUMA commissions Contemporary Artist Kehinde Wiley to create portraits of African Football Players to Celebrate World Cup 2010 Campaign" Archived August 2, 2010, at the Wayback Machine , PUMA Creative, January 2010. Retrieved October 13, 2010.
  63. ↑ "Equestrian Portrait of the Count-Duke Olivares (captioned image)". Harper's. Vol. 320, no. 1, 919. April 2010. p. 17. Retrieved August 15, 2011.(subscription required)
  64. ↑ "Painting: Kehinde Wiley", National Portrait Gallery: Recognize! Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture. Retrieved October 13, 2010.
  65. 1 2 3 Marshall, Alex (May 19, 2024). "Kehinde Wiley Denies Accusation of Sexual Assault by Artist". The New York Times . Archived from the original on May 20, 2024. Retrieved May 20, 2024.
  66. 1 2 3 Chung, Stephy; Mowbray, Nicole (May 21, 2024). "Artist Kehinde Wiley denies accusations of sexual assault". CNN . Archived from the original on May 21, 2024. Retrieved May 21, 2024.
  67. 1 2 3 Scribner, Herb; Kingsberry, Janay (May 20, 2024). "Kehinde Wiley denies accusations of sexual assault from fellow artist". The Washington Post . Archived from the original on May 20, 2024. Retrieved May 21, 2024.
  68. ↑ Eler, Alicia (June 14, 2024). "Minneapolis Institute of Art declines Kehinde Wiley show after artist is accused of sexual assault". Star Tribune . Archived from the original on June 16, 2024. Retrieved June 16, 2024.
  69. 1 2 3 Marshall, Alex; Pogrebin, Robin (June 13, 2024). "Museum Calls Off Kehinde Wiley Show, Citing Assault Allegations". The New York Times . Archived from the original on June 15, 2024. Retrieved June 16, 2024.
  70. ↑ Rosa, Amanda (June 21, 2024). "Miami flagship art museum cancels Kehinde Wiley show after sexual-assault allegations". Miami Herald . Archived from the original on June 22, 2024. Retrieved June 26, 2024.
  71. 1 2 3 Greenberger, Alex (June 10, 2024). "Kehinde Wiley Denies New Allegations of Sexual Assault from Two People". ARTnews . Archived from the original on June 14, 2024. Retrieved June 16, 2024.
  72. ↑ Boucher, Brian (June 13, 2024). "Planned Kehinde Wiley Exhibitions Canceled and Delayed in Wake of Assault Allegations". Artnet . Archived from the original on June 13, 2024. Retrieved June 16, 2024.
  73. ↑ Schrader, Adam (June 24, 2024). "Anti-Censorship Coalition Criticizes Cancellation of Kehinde Wiley Shows". Artnet . Archived from the original on June 26, 2024. Retrieved June 26, 2024.
  74. ↑ Sutton, Benjamin (June 25, 2024). "Cancelling Kehinde Wiley shows 'does a disservice to the audiences', anti-censorship group claims". The Art Newspaper . Archived from the original on June 26, 2024. Retrieved June 26, 2024.
  75. ↑ Solomon, Deborah (January 28, 2015). "Kehinde Wiley Puts a Classical Spin on His Contemporary Subjects". The New York Times.
  76. ↑ Butterworth, Benjamin (October 20, 2017). "Barack Obama picks gay artist Kehinde Wiley to do his official portrait". PinkNews . Retrieved February 12, 2018.
  77. ↑ Jackson, Brian Keith (April 2019), Kehinde Wiley’s Art Annex New York .
  78. ↑ www.bibliopolis.com. "Kehinde Wiley 23 November 2002-12 January 2003 by Kehinde WILEY on JONATHAN A. HILL, BOOKSELLER, INC". JONATHAN A. HILL, BOOKSELLER, INC. Retrieved December 29, 2022.
  79. ↑ Stowe, Stacey (November 24, 2002). "ART; Embracing the Offbeat In a Corner of Hartford". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved December 29, 2022.
  80. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Wiley, Kehinde. "Kehinde Wiley" (PDF). Kehinde Wiley Studio.
  81. ↑ "Kehinde Wiley / The World Stage: Israel". The Jewish Museum.
  82. ↑ "Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic February 20–May 24, 2015". www.brooklynmuseum.org. Retrieved June 22, 2017.
  83. ↑ Cocoves, Athena (February 2017). "Kehinde Wiley's twin desires: Clearing space and building a new republic at the Toledo Museum of Art". Toledo City Paper. Retrieved June 22, 2017.
  84. ↑ "Kehinde Wiley: Saint Louis" . Retrieved December 26, 2018.
  85. ↑ "Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence" . Retrieved February 19, 2024.
  86. ↑ "Portrait of Simon George II by Kehinde Wiley". crockerart.org.
  87. ↑ "Kehinde Wiley". thejewishmuseum.org.
  88. ↑ "Untitled (Hand Study 1)". collections.lacma.org.
  89. ↑ "Works – Kehinde Wiley – Artists". collection.themodern.org.
  90. ↑ "PAMM Fund for Black Art". BLK Art House. February 9, 2022. Retrieved April 11, 2023.
  91. ↑ "Kehinde Wiley, Alexander the Great, 2005". sfmoma.org.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.