Untitled (Handsome Young Man)

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