Kerry James Marshall

In high school Marshall began figure drawing under the mentorship of social realist painter Charles White, which continued on into Marshall's college career.[3][6] Marshall stated that during the years of his training, White "became as much as a friend as a mentor; I kept in touch with his family, even after his death."[7] While studying at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, he worked to "not have a representational image or a specific story to tell," over abstraction.[8] Marshall earned a B.F.A. degree in 1978 from Otis College of Art and Design.[9]

The painting Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self (1980) was a departure for Marshall, and was the first painting he made of a Black figure.[22] Prior to this work, Marshall was working in collage.[23] It is a small painting, made with egg tempera on paper.[24] It was created primarily in shades of black and depicts the bust of a black man with a large white smile and gapped teeth.[23] Since 2019, this painting lives in the collection at Los Angeles County Museum of Modern Art (LACMA).[23]

Untitled (Supermodel) by Kerry James Marshall, 1994, Honolulu Museum of Art

Vignette #2, 2008. Acrylic on Plexiglas displayed at Chicago Art Institute.

Marshall based several of his pieces in the early 1990s on actual events in American history. One such painting,Voyager,[25] painted in 1992, has special pertinence in a discussion of race issues in the United States because Marshall based it on a "luxury schooner ... secretly outfitted to carry African slaves".[15] Symbols of this representation abound, from the two black figures in the boat and the flowers draped around the woman's neck to the contrast between the light and airy clouds and the darkness of the upper background. A skull lies in the water, just beneath the ship, hinting at the doomed future of the Africans, and the unknown woman has an expression of uneasiness. He thus brings to the forefront the irony of a ship with a beautiful, high class appearance and a dark secret purpose, forcing people to think about something they would rather forget.

Marshall explored the concept of black beauty in contrast to Western ideals with his painting, Untitled (La Venus Negra) (1992).[15] The figure, this time a nude woman, literally blends into her dark surroundings, her sensuous shape barely discernible. Yet once the viewer looks closely, her curvaceous figure evokes a womanly power only enhanced by the deep black of her skin. The painting Untitled (Supermodel) (1994), is in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art, this work portrays a black woman trying to look like blond Caucasian models. The work also references self-portraits of the artist, who adorns himself with pale lipstick and a long blond wig.[26]

One of his most famous series of works The Lost Boys (1993-1995) displays the lives of and issues many African Americans faced. The series of portraits was of young African American boys from the shoulder up, with very dark skin tones, which contrasted with extreme whiteness of the subject's eyes which was common in Marshall's works. The portraits also featured almost completely white imagery, with white orbs, flowers, and areas in the background to create even more contrast. The artist explained that this series of portraits was to show these young boys loss of innocence at an early age and being a victim to ghettos and public housing.[27]

As Marshall admits, he himself "had not considered that a black woman could be considered a goddess of love and beauty," but with this painting he proves its possibility.[15] He challenges the classic perception of a goddess as a white woman with long flowing hair, speaking again to the issue of African American identity in the Western world. This concept has more meaning when looking at the African pattern on the top quarter of the background. With this addition, he references the movement begun during the Harlem Renaissance to incorporate traditional African aesthetics into African American art.[28] In an attempt to reconcile the African art and Western ideals, Marshall places both in his painting. Thus he highlights the search for a black identity that involves all aspects of their ancestral history and their current situation. Although African Americans may feel connected to two differing cultures, Marshall's painting of a classically Western figure represented with a new black aesthetic brings the two together, showing that they can live in harmony.

The Garden Project is an insightful series of paintings, both in its shrill outcry against the false promises and despairing reality of low-income public housing and in its capacity to show the incredible ability of African Americans to find happiness and build community despite these conditions. Through this series, Marshall reveals the inherent contradictions and profound juxtapositions between the idealized promises of Public Housing Projects and the often harsh, despairing reality of those living in them. But Marshall goes beyond merely exposing the discrepancy between this ideal and its corresponding reality, as his work alludes to the sense of community and hope that African American's were able to create within the grinding conditions of low-income housing. Inspired by his former home, Nickerson Gardens, Marshall's series "The Garden Project" makes an ironic play on the connotations inherent in the word "garden." The five paintings in the series depict different public housing projects – Rockwell Gardens, Wentworth Gardens, Stateway Gardens, etc. – exploring how the almost eden-like imagery used in the names is absurd in regards to these failed projects. Executed on unstretched canvas, these massive paintings appear mural-like. Their collaged elements and, at times, rough surface treatment signify the decrepitude of public housing projects and the difficulty of life within them.

Marshall's Many Mansions, from 1994, exposes the contradiction between the name "Stateway Gardens", and the reality of life there. There is a deceitful cheerfulness permeating the piece, as the landscape is illustrated in full bloom. The exaggeratedly black figures are planting blossoming flowers, the trees are pristinely cut, and everything appears bountiful. But Marshall's black figures, as Michael Kimmelman notes in his New York Times piece, are "stiff and stylized: almost stereotypes".[29] They epitomize the impoverished black man living in public housing and unlike the landscape that surrounds them, they are not cheerful. One stares condemningly at the viewer, while the other two avert their gaze, all devoid of happiness. The buildings they live in appear as cardboard backdrops, calling attention to the falsity of the situation. Truth is not found in the beautiful utopianism of the scenery or flowers, but rather in the artificiality of the buildings and the stereotypical, damning images of the men who live in them.

The Souvenir series chronicles the loss dealt to American society from the deaths of leaders in politics, literature, arts, and music.[30] Souvenir III, finished in 1998, centers on the angel that arbitrates the present with the past. She is an angel of annunciation and the caretaker of the living room's arrangements.[31][30] However, in creating a new rhetoric of black people in America, he highlights their differences from conventional white power structures. There is a subtlety to the characters that compels the viewer to look deeper: these figures are directly in opposition to the abstraction black artists felt they had to incorporate in order to become mainstream artists. Marshall calls this incorporation of a strong aesthetic and political commentary a "visual authority" that commands the attention of society[21] Within Souvenir III, the names of prominent black historical figures and the years of their deaths are featured at the top of the mural-sized painting.[31] Thus, the theme of timelessness emerges: the viewer is in the present ruminating on the legacies of figures who are both civil rights champions and African American artists. The paintings reinforce these symbols of remembrance with the phrases "We Mourn Our Loss" and "In Memory Of". Souvenir IV (1998), likewise set in a middle-class living room based on Marshall's family's living quarters, is realism with a touch of the intangible. Through the painting the viewer is traveling to the Civil Rights era and the painting itself is a postcard that also marks the journey. The entire scene echoes Egyptian rituals of supplying the dead in the afterlife with furnishings and food.[30] Souvenir III and IV are done in the grisaille style, an "old-master narrative painting" technique, while Souvenir I and II (1997) are done in color.[30] As one examines the backgrounds of the Souvenir series, the viewer realizes the lushness of the settings even within the monochromatic natures of III and IV. A Marshall hallmark is the stamping repeated through a painting, seen here as angel wings surrounding the black leaders, and floral backgrounds, seen here as glittered ornamentation.[21]

In 2017, Marshall was commissioned by the non-profit, Murals of Acceptance to produce a public mural entitled, Rush More. Located on the west façade of the Chicago Cultural Center, the piece was intended to be an homage to woman who have contributed to the culture of Chicago.[32][33]

In 2018, two of Marshall's large masterpieces came to public attention in a clash between public art, and commerce. In May, Past Times (1997) was sold by the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority to Sean Combs for a $21 million funding windfall to the public agency, after hanging in McCormick Place for many years. Past Times had played an important role during its loan to the 2016 museum exhibition. In October, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced plans to upgrade the Legler Branch of the Chicago Public Library on the West Side. The upgrade would be financed by the auction of the library's Knowledge and Wonder (1995). After criticism, including from Marshall, the Mayor cancelled the auction.[34][35]