Lot 17: Kehinde Wiley

Fall
Signed and dated "Kehinde Wiley 09" on the reverse.

72 x 60 in. (182.9 x 152.4 cm).

Oil on canvas.

2009

Roberts & Tilton, Los Angeles

Kehinde Wiley’s portraits of African American men collate modern culture with the influence of Old Masters. Incorporating a range of vernaculars culled from art historical references, Wiley’s work melds a fluid concept of modern culture, ranging from French Rococo to today’s urban landscape. By collapsing history and style into a unique contemporary vision, Wiley interrogates the notion of master painter, “making it at once critical and complicit.” Vividly colorful and often adorned with ornate gilded frames, Wiley’s large-scale figurative paintings, which are illuminated with a barrage of baroque or rococo decorative patterns, posit young black men, fashioned in urban attire, within the field of power reminiscent of Renaissance artists such as Tiepolo and Titian.
(Excerpt from the Artist's Statement for, "RECOGNIZE! Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture," Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery Washington, D.C.,  February 8 - October 26, 2008)