Kerry James Marshall: The Histories

"Kerry James Marshall: The Histories" brings together 70 works, including eight new paintings created specifically for the exhibition.

Marshall is known for large-scale compositions that centre Black figures, often transforming scenes of everyday life into monumental images. By placing Black figures within art-historical archetypes, Marshall examines representation and visibility. His work addresses themes including the Middle Passage and the legacies of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements, without directly depicting violence or alienation. His practice draws on the Western art-historical canon as well as diverse forms of popular visual culture, including nineteenth-century French painting, contemporary culture, Afrofuturism, comic books and science fiction.

The exhibition spans more than four decades of Marshall’s practice. It brings together several bodies of work, primarily paintings, alongside prints, drawings and sculptures, loaned from museums and private collections across North America and Europe.