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A Kerry James Marshall Playlist

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Kerry James Marshall, 7 am Sunday Morning, 2003. Acrylic on canvas banner; 120 × 216 in. (304.8 × 548.6 cm). Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Joseph and Jory Shapiro Fund by exchange, 2003.16. Photo: Michal Raz-Russo, © MCA Chicago.

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Visible or not, music permeates Kerry James Marshall’s artwork; sometimes appearing as actual lyrics and musical notes, sometimes just existing as inspiration, playing in Marshall’s studio while he works. Here we’ve assembled a Kerry James Marshall playlist, based on the music referenced in his work—look for a deeper exploration of his art, music, and references on our “Mastry” microsite, coming very soon.

Slow Dance, 1992–93

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Kerry James Marshall, Slow Dance, 1992–93. Mixed media and acrylic on canvas; 75 ¼ x 74 ¼ in. (191.1 × 188.6 cm). Lent by the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago; Purchase, Smart Family Foundation Fund for Contemporary Art, and Paul and Miriam Kirkley Fund for Acquisitions. Photo © 2015 courtesy of The David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art, The University of Chicago.

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Past Times, 1997

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Kerry James Marshall, Past Times, 1997. Acrylic and collage on canvas; 114 × 156 in. (289.6 × 396.2 cm). Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, McCormick Place Art Collection. Photo: Nathan Keay, © MCA Chicago.

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Untitled (Vignette), 2012

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Kerry James Marshall, Untitled (Vignette), 2012. Acrylic on PVC; 72 × 60 in. (182.9 × 152.4 cm). From the Collection of Martin Nesbitt and Dr. Anita Blanchard. © Kerry James Marshall, courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York.

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7 am Sunday Morning, 2003

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Kerry James Marshall, 7 am Sunday Morning, 2003. Acrylic on canvas banner; 120 × 216 in. (304.8 × 548.6 cm). Collection Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Joseph and Jory Shapiro Fund by exchange, 2003.16. Photo: Michal Raz-Russo, © MCA Chicago.

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Exhibitions

  • In this painting, a woman painter holds a paint palette in front of a paint-by-numbers portrait. Her skin is as black as the as the solid black background; she stares confidently into our eyes.
    Kerry James Marshall: Mastry–
    1. Long This painted portrait depicts a young woman with jet-black skin holding a long, thin paintbrush up to a colorful, messy painter’s palette. She is shown in a three-quarter pose, gazing directly at the viewer. Her face, which is central to the square composition, stands out against a large, white, canvas, almost blending into the pitch-black background to her right. Closer inspection reveals, however, that her skin is subtly rendered, with various shades of contours and highlights. She wears two large hoop earrings, three small hoop earrings, and an oversized, boxy, high-collared jacket made of stiff fabric. Her voluminous hair—black with an ochre sheen—rises in thick coils on top of her head. The canvas to her left shows a partly finished paint-by-number self-portrait; in it, her likeness is broken up into smaller segments with pale-blue outlines and numbers. She has outlined many of the segments and filled them in with colors from her palette: orange, blue, yellow, pink, brown, and a few shades of green. The paint-by-number canvas does not accurately represent the color and pattern of the jacket she wears, which features mustard yellow sleeves and collar and deep blue and maroon and light yellow stripes.

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