Black Contemporary American Artists : Kerry James Marshall

Kerry James Marshall was born in 1966 in Birmingham, Alabama and is one of the most influential and celebrated artists in America. Marshall works with a variety of paints and is known for large-scale works with Black figures as the primary focus of his compositions which are often times accompanied by bursts of saturated color. Marshall has had exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum, the National Gallery of Art in D.C., Venice Biennale International Exhibition, as well as in his current town of residence, Chicago, at the Art Institute. Marshall’s work “challenges the marginalization of African Americans with canvases that both revere and subvert the Western canon [and] his knowledge of art history, including Black folk art, contributes to the formal rigor of his compositions.”

Kerry James Marshall. Artsy. Retrieved January 14, 2023 from https://www.artsy.net/artist/kerry-james-marshall
Kerry James Marshall. Jack Shainman gallery. Retrieved January 14, 2023 from https://jackshainman.com/artists/kerry_james_marshall
(Image – Slow Dance) Courtesy of The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, © Kerry James Marshall
Kerry James Marshall (Portrait) https://www.artspace.com/magazine/interviews_features/book_report/kerry-james-marshall-54826