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Saint Francis of Paola

Saint Francis of Paola

Artist: Kehinde Wiley (American, born 1977)
Date: 2003
Dimensions:
82 x 70 in. (208.3 x 177.8 cm)
Medium: oil on canvas
Classification: Paintings
Credit Line: Gift of Charles L. Borgmeyer, Mrs. Webster Plass, and C. W. Kraushaar, by exchange
Object number: 2005.290
Label Text:"How do you look at a young Black man in American society? It is a very important question, especially at this moment in our culture."--Kehinde Wiley

Though now Kehinde Wiley sometimes paints well-known figures (including LL Cool J, Questlove, and Barack Obama), he still practices the collaborative method he developed in his early career, which he calls “street casting.” As he did with this early painting, Wiley chooses as his portrait subjects ordinary young African American men (and increasingly, women) that he sees passing by on the street. If the chosen model agrees to a portrait, Wiley has them leaf through art history books and choose a pose from the images. Wiley then paints his usually street-clothes-clad model in a pose derived from Baroque portraits of monarchs or Renaissance paintings of saints. With this method, he presents a contemporary person of color within the grandiose traditions of Old Master paintings, where historically Black men and women were absent or relegated to the margins.

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In Collection(s)