Saint Francis of Paola

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Saint Francis of Paola

Artist Kehinde Wiley (American, born 1977)

Date2003

DimensionsFrame: 82 × 70 1/4 × 5 in. (208.3 × 178.4 × 12.7 cm)

Mediumoil on canvas

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LineGift of Charles L. Borgmeyer, Mrs. Webster Plass, and C. W. Kraushaar, by exchange

Object number

2005.290

Not on View

Label TextKehinde Wiley’s work engages with the politics of representation. He situates himself in the Western tradition of portrait painting, utilizing Baroque and Rococo-style ornamentation to create large-scale heroic portraits of African American men and women. Throughout the history of painting, Black people have been excluded or relegated to the margins, and as Wiley expresses about this body of work, “Painting is about the world that we live in. Black men live in this world. My choice is to include them. This is my way of saying yes to us.” St. Francis of Paola is an early example of his ongoing Passing/Posing series, which refers to the tension between attempting to attain a sense of power and privilege associated with whiteness and trying to preserve one’s own identity. Originally, Wiley would meet his male subjects for this series walking through his New York neighborhood of Harlem in a process he calls “streetcasting.” He invites his chosen model to select an Old Master painting they would like to emulate. The figure here is rendered in his contemporary clothing but striking a pose from a painting of an Italian Christian seafaring saint. The portrait takes the form of a European Renaissance or Baroque painting, but updated, as Wiley expands who gets the right to be visible, represented, and celebrated.Published ReferencesToledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art Masterworks, Toledo, 2009, p. 355, repr. (col.).Exhibition HistoryToledo, Toledo Museum of Art, Speaking Visual: Learning the Language of Art, Oct. 31, 2014-Jan. 25, 2015.