black and white etching of a portrait of a man; gazing toward PR; wearing a dense gray robe with black and white pointed lines; black background

%C2%A9 Kerry James Marshall

Untitled (Handsome Young Man), 2010

Etching and aquatintexpand_more

Gift of Mary and Bob Merskyexpand_more  2016.110.4

Not on Viewexpand_more

Kerry James Marshall is internationally acclaimed for his often provocative explorations of black identity and experience. His race-conscious art challenges the historical exclusion of African Americans in Western art history by depicting “unequivocally, emphatically Black” characters. Produced in 2010, this dignified portrait demonstrates Marshall’s effort to expand the genre of portraiture beyond its prejudicial legacy.

“The way we understand art history, the way we encounter the idea of art in museums seemed incomplete to me. And a lot of that incompleteness was around the idea of what mastery was and masterpieces in the world of painting were. And so I, like everybody else, I only know what art is because people who wrote art history books and who put pictures in museums told me that’s what it was supposed to be. And when I wasn’t seeing a lot of pictures of Black folks in those paintings that everybody was supposed to be looking at, that was a problem for me. And resolving that problem became a paramount objective.”
—Kerry James Marshall, 2017

Details
Title
Untitled (Handsome Young Man)
Artist Life
born 1955
Role
Artist
Accession Number
2016.110.4
Provenance
Paulson Bott Press, Berkeley, Calif. (publisher), sold to Mersky; Robert B. Mersky, Minneapolis; given to MIA, 2016.
Curator Approved

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black and white etching of a portrait of a man; gazing toward PR; wearing a dense gray robe with black and white pointed lines; black background

© Kerry James Marshall

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