By Kerry James Marshall
Located in New York, NY
Kerry James Marshall
Keeping the Culture, 2011
Silkscreen and linocut in colors with full margins and deckled edges on Arches paper with full margins and deckled edges
20-1/4 x 30-1/4 inches
Hand signed, titled and numbered 79/100 by Kerry James Marshall in graphite pencil on the front
Published by Africa House International, Chicago
Unframed
In September, 2025, "Kerry James Marshall: The Histories" opened at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. This major exhibition was the largest presentation of Marshall's work in the United Kingdom and Europe, and featured more than 70 works by the the artist, including a large number of paintings and a selection of prints, drawings and sculptures. Highlights of the show include a new series of paintings that explore the transatlantic slave trade, along with Knowledge and Wonder, a mural commissioned in 1995 by the Chicago Public Library that is the largest painting Marshall has produced. The exhibition at the Royal Academy will then travel to the Kunsthaus Zurich and the Musee d'Art Modern in Paris.
Kerry James Marshall's 2011 "Keeping the Culture" is based upon the artist's eponymous painting done the year earlier, which is featured in the Royal Academy Exhibition. In 2013, an original painting, upon which this work is based, sold at Christie's auction. Below is the Christie's Lot Essay for that painting:
..." Set in a revolutionary apartment in the cosmos, Kerry James Marshall's Keeping the Culture optimistically anticipates a future that pays homage to the past. Ushering in a new stage of the artist's output, Keeping the Culture shifts focus from the failed utopia of urban renewal and the commemoration of civil rights era heroes in favor of a more technically refined meditation on the preservation of the traditional and spiritual values that shaped a culture. Placed in an ultramodern environment, two siblings marvel at a projection of the earth--in which Marshall has aptly positioned the African continent toward the viewer-while their affectionate parents dance in the foreground. Overlooking the milky way, Marshall's space-age flat is decorated with earthly relics-wooden tribal sculptures...
Category
2010s Contemporary Mixed Media Prints and Multiples
MaterialsMixed Media, Pencil, Linocut, Screen
