To mark the 70th birthday of renowned artist Kerry James Marshall, the Royal Academy of Arts is dedicating a comprehensive exhibition to him entitled Kerry James Marshall: The Histories. The exhibition features mainly paintings, but also prints, drawings, and sculptures. It opens on September 20 in London.
American artist Kerry James Marshall (born 1955) is considered one of the leading artistic voices of our time. Based on his own life experiences as a Black man, he places everyday experiences as well as historical and political motifs at the center of his work. The artist lends an epic character to the everyday. He uses techniques and traditions of European history painting to make visible the people who have long been hidden in art and to visualize more optimistic prospects for the future. On the occasion of his 70th birthday, the major exhibition Kerry James Marshall: The Histories is on view at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. The show, which comprises over 70 works, runs from September 20, 2025, to January 18, 2026, and is the largest exhibition of the artist's work in the United Kingdom since 2006.
In 2022, Marshall was appointed an honorary member of the Royal Academy. He created a series of new paintings especially for the current exhibition, and his oil painting Knowledge and Wonder (1995), measuring almost 3 x 7 meters, is also on display outside Chicago, the artist's home, for the first time. Marshall has already been represented at documenta (1997, 2007) and the Venice Biennale (2003). In 1997, he was also awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. The decisive turning point in the artist's career was the small 20 x 16 cm painting A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self (1980) in egg tempera on paper, which Marshall created in his mid-20s: here, for the first time, he depicted a black figure. He left behind the abstract mixed-media collages that had defined his oeuvre until then. Since 2019, the work has been in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Modern Art.
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