Marshall often recounts an episode from his summer course at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles after seventh grade, when he visited the studio of his childhood idol Charles White (1918–1979). It was the first time Marshall had seen an artist’s workspace in person and also the moment he realized that making pictures was something he, too, could do. Untitled (Studio) is in part about that discovery of a Black artist’s workshop—a place of labor where an allegorical catalogue of all modes of art making is on display. At the same time, it is also a majestic ode to the job of the artist, the history of painting, and the multiple possibilities that still pump through the heart of its practice.
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Credit Line:Purchase, The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation Gift, Acquisitions Fund and The Metropolitan Museum of Art Multicultural Audience Development Initiative Gift, 2015
Inscription: Signed and dated (lower right): K.J.M. 2014; (verso) Kerry James Marshall 2014
the artist, Chicago (2014–15; sold through David Zwirner, New York to MMA)
London. David Zwirner. "Kerry James Marshall: Look See," October 11–November 22, 2014, unnumbered cat. (pp. 44–45).
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. "Kerry James Marshall: Mastry," April 23–September 25, 2016, no. 79.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art [The Met Breuer]. "Kerry James Marshall: Mastry," October 25, 2016–January 29, 2017, no. 79.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. "Kerry James Marshall: Mastry," March 12–July 2, 2017, no. 79.
Robert Storr inKerry James Marshall: Look See. Exh. cat., David Zwirner, London. New York, 2015, pp. 14–15, ill. frontispiece (color, detail), pp. 44–45 (color).
Kerry James Marshall with Angela Choon inKerry James Marshall: Look See. Exh. cat., David Zwirner, London. New York, 2015, pp. 94, 96–99, ill. pp. 98 (color, detail), 102 (color, installation photo).
Helen Molesworth. "Kerry James Marshall." Artforum 54 (December 2015), p. 198, ill. (color).
Ian Alteveer in "Recent Acquisitions. A Selection: 2014–2016." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 74 (Fall 2016), p. 88, ill. (color) and front cover (color detail).
Kathryn Calley Galitz. The Metropolitan Museum of Art Masterpiece Paintings. New York, 2016, p. 536, ill. (color), colorpl. 500.
Helen Molesworth inKerry James Marshall: Mastry. Ed. Helen Molesworth. Exh. cat., Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Chicago, 2016, pp. 29–31, 264, fig. 7 (color), colorpl. 79.
Dieter Roelstraete inKerry James Marshall: Mastry. Ed. Helen Molesworth. Exh. cat., Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Chicago, 2016, p. 53 n. 12, p. 54 n. 14.
Jennifer Smith. "Kerry James Marshall, Recoloring Art History." Wall Street Journal (October 22–23, 2016), p. A13, ill.
Peter Erickson. "Posing the Black Painter: Kerry James Marshall’s Portraits of Artists’ Self-Portraits." Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art no. 38–39 (November 2016), pp. 48–51, ill. (color).
Antwaun Sargent with Kerry James Marshall. "Kerry James Marshall's Mastry." interviewmagazine.com. April 22, 2016.
Kerry James Marshall in "Kerry James Marshall: Driven to Make a Difference." Art Newspaper no. 279 (May 2016), p. 52.
Helen Molesworth with Kerry James Marshall. "Learning is Problem Solving." Flash Art International 49 (September/October 2016), ill. p. 50 (color).
Kerry James Marshall. "Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres's 'Odalisque in Grisaille'." The Artist Project: What Artists See When They Look at Art. Ed. Chris Noey. New York, 2017, ill. p. 144 (color).
Karen Wilkin. "Kerry James Marshall at Met Breuer." New Criterion 35 (January 2017), p. 63.
Carroll Dunham. "The Marshall Plan: Kerry James Marshall's 'Mastry'." Artforum 55 (January 2017), p. 187, ill. pp. 188–89 (color).
Charles Gaines et al. Kerry James Marshall. London, 2017, ill. p. 45 (color).
David Zwirner et al. David Zwirner: 25 Years. Exh. cat., David Zwirner Gallery. New York, 2018, ill. p. 187 (color).
Michael Shadlen in "Session 1." Kerry James Marshall: A Creative Convening. Ed. Sandra Jackson-Dumont. New York, 2018, p. 101, fig. A (color).
Ian Alteveer in "Session 2." Kerry James Marshall: A Creative Convening. Ed. Sandra Jackson-Dumont. New York, 2018, pp. 131, 134, 136, fig. B (color) and ill. front cover and flap (color details).
Dushko Petrovich. "It Looks Like You." T: The New York Times Style Magazine (February 18, 2018), p. 168, ill. (color).
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Guide. New York, 2019, p. 434, ill. (color).
Max Hollein. Modern and Contemporary Art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2019, ill. pp. 162–63 (color).
Phaidon Press, ed. 30,000 Years of Art: The Story of Human Creativity across Time and Space. Rev. and updated ed. (1st ed., 2007). New York, 2019, p. 605, ill. (color).
Nicole R. Fleetwood. Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration. Cambridge, Mass., 2020, p. I, relates this work to Ronnie Goodman's "San Quentin Arts in Corrections Art Studio" (2008).
Joshua Barone. "March Études And Interludes." New York Times (February 26, 2021), p. C13, highlights a March 9, 2021 performance by Anthony McGill and the Catalyst Quartet taking place in front of this painting at MMA.
Holland Cotter. "Unveiling a Tale of Neglect and Triumph." New York Times (February 9, 2021), p. C1, ill. (color), reviews the documentary "Black Art: In the Absence of Light," which features this painting.
Keidrick Roy. "Well-Wrought Black Thought: Speculative Realism and the Specter of Race." New Literary History 53 (Summer 2022), pp. 457, 462 n. 37, fig. 3 (color).
Karen Wilkin. "The Met's Grand Tour." New Criterion 42 (February 2024), p. 49.
Kathryn Calley Galitz. How to Read Portraits. New York, 2024, pp. 26–27, fig. 5 (color).
Publishing and Marketing Assistant Rachel High speaks with author Kathryn Calley Galitz about her new book, a landmark survey of The Met's painting collection.
Kerry James Marshall (American, born Birmingham, Alabama, 1955)
1992
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