Marshall often recounts an episode from his summer course at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles after seventh grade, when he visited the studio of his childhood idol Charles White (1918–1979). It was the first time Marshall had seen an artist’s workspace in person and also the moment he realized that making pictures was something he, too, could do. Untitled (Studio) is in part about that discovery of a Black artist’s workshop—a place of labor where an allegorical catalogue of all modes of art making is on display. At the same time, it is also a majestic ode to the job of the artist, the history of painting, and the multiple possibilities that still pump through the heart of its practice.
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Credit Line:Purchase, The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation Gift, Acquisitions Fund and The Metropolitan Museum of Art Multicultural Audience Development Initiative Gift, 2015
Inscription: Signed and dated (verso): Kerry James Marshall 2014
[David Zwirner, New York, 2014–15; sold to MMA]
London. David Zwirner. "Kerry James Marshall: Look See," October 11–November 22, 2014, unnumbered cat. (pp. 44–45).
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. "Kerry James Marshall: Mastry," April 23–September 25, 2016, no. 79.
New York. The Met Breuer. "Kerry James Marshall: Mastry," October 25, 2016–January 29, 2017, no. 79.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. "Kerry James Marshall: Mastry," March 12–July 2, 2017, no. 79.
Robert Storr inKerry James Marshall: Look See. Exh. cat., David Zwirner, London. New York, 2015, pp. 14–15, ill. frontispiece (color detail) pp. 44–45 (color), 102 (color, installation photo).
Kerry James Marshall with Angela Choon inKerry James Marshall: Look See. Exh. cat., David Zwirner, London. New York, 2015, pp. 94, 96–99, ill. (color detail).
Helen Molesworth. "Kerry James Marshall." Artforum 54 (December 2015).
Ian Alteveer in "Recent Acquisitions. A Selection: 2014–2016." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 74 (Fall 2016), p. 88, ill. (color) and front cover (color detail).
Kathryn Calley Galitz. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Masterpiece Paintings. New York, 2016, p. 536, ill. (color), colorpl. 500.
Helen Molesworth inKerry James Marshall: Mastry. Ed. Helen Molesworth. Exh. cat., Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Chicago, 2016, pp. 29–31, fig. 7 (color), 264, colorpl. 79.
Dieter Roelstraete inKerry James Marshall: Mastry. Ed. Helen Molesworth. Exh. cat., Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Chicago, 2016, p. 53 n. 12, p. 54 n. 14.
Jennifer Smith. "Kerry James Marshall, Recoloring Art History." Wall Street Journal (October 22–23, 2016), p. A13, ill.
Peter Erickson. "Posing the Black Painter Kerry James Marshall’s Portraits of Artists’ Self-Portraits." Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art (November 2016), p. 40.
Kerry James Marshall. "Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres's 'Odalisque in Grisaille'." The Artist Project: What Artists See When They Look at Art. Ed. Chris Noey. New York, 2017, ill. p. 144 (color).
Karen Wilkin. "Kerry James Marshall at Met Breuer." New Criterion 35 (January 2017).
David Zwirner et al. David Zwirner: 25 Years. Exh. cat., David Zwirner Gallery. New York, 2018, ill. p. 187 (color).
Michael Shadlen. Kerry James Marshall: A Creative Convening. Ed. Sandra Jackson-Dumont. New York, 2018, p. 101, fig. A (color).
Ian Alteveer. Kerry James Marshall: A Creative Convening. Ed. Sandra Jackson-Dumont. New York, 2018, p. 131, 134, 136, fig. B (color) and ill. front cover and flap (color details).
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. New York, 2019, p. 434, ill. (color).
Max Hollein. Modern and Contemporary Art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2019, ill. pp. 162–63 (color).
Nicole R. Fleetwood. Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration. Cambridge, Mass., 2020, p. 1.
Publishing and Marketing Assistant Rachel High speaks with author Kathryn Calley Galitz about her new book, a landmark survey of The Met's painting collection.
Kerry James Marshall (American, born Birmingham, Alabama, 1955)
1995
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