Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner
Catalogue Essay
Celebrated for his masterful reinterpretations of conventional European portraiture, Kehinde Wiley made history in 2018 as the first African American artist to paint the official presidential portrait of Barack Obama for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C. Wiley’s subjects typically derive, however, from “street casting” people he encounters in Harlem. Culling from a wide range of art historical sources, Wiley captures these young African American men assuming poses that connote the canonical works of Holbein, Titian, Velázquez, David, and Ingres. Wiley inserts these brilliantly rendered compositions within a lineage of traditional portraiture while also drawing attention to the absence of African Americans from cultural and historical narratives. By positing his subjects into a field of power, he engages, questions, and undermines the vernacular modes of representation that dictate the signification of heroic masculinity.
A trademark of Wiley’s singular practice, the present lot captures two subjects, wearing contemporary urban attire, rendered in a photo‐realistic style set against and contrasted with a decorative floral background. By extracting these poses and de-contextualizing them from their sources, Wiley prompts his audience to consider the portrayal of power and stereotypes of black masculinity as part of a socially constructed lexicon of visual codes. Collapsing history and style, the present lot conjures both a tension between the figures who seem out of place against their backdrop, while also manifesting a sense of harmony that connects the overall composition.
The present lot exemplifies Wiley’s unmatched compositional instinct and ability to deliver layers of visual and conceptual gravity that simultaneously coalesce and collide. Whether caught on the perplexing ambiguity or seduced by the radiating fluency of these paintings, Wiley’s audience remains fascinated. Proving his unwavering ability to present his audience with perplexing ambiguities and challenging questions, this work asserts Wiley’s canonical presence within the lineage of portraiture.