In his multifaceted work, Kerry James Marshall strives to address “the lack in the image bank” by elevating Black figures who have been excluded from Western art. Using a variety of black pigments, the artist heightens the skin tones of his subjects to honor their identities rather than ignore them. Best known for his large-scale paintings, Marshall also works in collage, photography, video and other media.
Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Marshall later grew up in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, where his family relocated in 1963. As he studied art, including at the Otis Art Institute (now Otis College of Art and Design) in Los Angeles, he was struck by the absence of Black bodies in art history and museums. At the age of 25, he painted A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self (1980). Its central figure, whose features almost merge with the background in their varying shades of black, references Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, the protagonist of which cannot be seen as a human being by other members of society because he is Black. For Marshall, A Portrait marked the start of an ongoing examination of the simultaneous visibility and invisibility of Black Americans.
Marshall’s practice has continued to concentrate on confronting stereotypes in the Black experience by celebrating joy and commemorating moments of Black history. His paintings frequently engage with the white-dominated traditions of the art historical canon by borrowing elements of style ranging from the Renaissance to the abstract movements of the 20th century. While he has said that he is driven by a sense of social responsibility for what he witnessed growing up in the South before the Civil Rights Act and in Los Angeles during the Watts riots of 1965, Marshall doesn’t focus on trauma in his works’ narrative scenes. Instead, they regularly depict people involved in everyday activities yet portrayed with the monumentality of a tableau painting.
Now based in Chicago, Marshall is recognized as one of the country’s leading contemporary painters, with a 2016 retrospective, "Mastry," touring the MCA Chicago, MOCA and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In 2018, his painting Marshall’s Past Times (1997) sold for $21.1 million, the highest ever auction price for a work by a living Black artist.
Browse a collection of Kerry James Marshall’s art on 1stDibs.
Set of Six (Six) Scout Series Embroidered textile Patches brand new and sealed
By Kerry James Marshall
Located in New York, NY
KERRY JAMES MARSHALL Set of Six (Six) Scout Series Embroidered Patches, 2017 Rayon thread on poly twill backed embroidered patches, set of six. Brand new in original packaging. Large...
Textile, Mixed Media
Kerry James Marshall - Keeping the Culture, silkscreen and linocut, Signed/N
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...
Mixed Media, Pencil, Linocut, Screen
Untitled (Frankenstein)
By Kerry James Marshall
Located in Berkeley, CA
Hardground Etching
Etching
Souvenir 1 pillow sham
By Kerry James Marshall
Located in Washington , DC, DC
This limited edition pillow sham was released by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles where it quickly sold out. The image is screen printed on cotton percale with rich colo...
Cotton
Kerry James Marshall - May 15 2001 signed/N, iconic silkscreen Black art, Framed
By Kerry James Marshall
Located in New York, NY
Kerry James Marshall May 15, 2001, 2003 Four color silkscreen on Arches 88 paper Pencil signed, dated and numbered 39/60 on the front. Bears printer's blind stamp Vintage frame incl...
Screen
SCOUT SERIES SET OF 6
By Kerry James Marshall
Located in Washington , DC, DC
Comes with original packaging
Thread
2016 Kerry James Marshall - Mastry - The Met Original Poster
By Kerry James Marshall
Located in Winchester, GB
Beautiful poster created for the 2016 exhibition of American artist Kerry James Marshall at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, or The Met, in New York. Held from October 2016 to January...
Paper
Untitled (Bride of Frankenstein)
By Kerry James Marshall
Located in Berkeley, CA
Hardground Etching
Etching
Large MOCA LA Street Vinyl Outdoor Banner for Kerry James Marshall Show - RARE
By Kerry James Marshall
Located in New York, NY
Kerry James Marshall MOCA LA Street Banner (Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles), 2017 Silkscreen on Vinyl 95 × 34 inches Original Gigantic Flagpole Banner exhibited on the stree...
Plastic, Screen
$2,800
Kerry James Marshall Full Set of 6 Embroidered Patches Brownie Scout
By Kerry James Marshall
Located in Draper, UT
KERRY JAMES MARSHALL Scout Series (Brownie Set), 2017 Embroidered patches on original branded backing cards Set of 6, each approximately 4 × 4 in (10.2 × 10.2 cm); card: 6 × 4 in (15...
Vinyl
Mastry New and Sealed Exhibition Hardcover Catalogue
By Kerry James Marshall
Located in Draper, UT
The definitive monograph on contemporary African American painter Kerry James Marshall, accompanying a major traveling retrospective. This long-awaited volume celebrates the work of ...
Archival Paper
Kerry James Marshall Banner Authentic Mastry Exhibition
By Kerry James Marshall
Located in Draper, UT
Mastry 2017 Exhibition Banner Actual Banner Prominently Displayed in Downtown LA Throughout a career spanning four decades, Kerry James Marshall has continuously interrogated and addressed the omission of black individuals from the Western art-historical canon. Across painting and a variety of different media, his complex and multilayered portrayals synthesize disparate genres, while seeking to counter stereotypical representations. As Lanka Tattersall notes, "Marshall's determination to mark the historical absence of black bodies in the Western canon of painting and his emphatic, programmatic insertion of blackness into the field of art are carried through the literal matter—the pigments—of his paintings."1 Marshall was born in 1955 in Birmingham, Alabama. He studied at the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, earning his B.F.A. in 1978 and an honorary doctorate in 1999. In 2014, Marshall joined David Zwirner...
Vinyl
$800
H 17.375 in W 12.5 in
Connais-tu le Pays (Primavera) apres J. Rolshoven (Do you Know the Country)
By Theophile Narcisse Chauvel
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Connais-tu le Pays (Primavera) apres J. Rolshoven (Do you Know the Country -Spring) Etching, 1889 Signed "Julius Rolshoven" in pencil...
Etching
$14,000
H 10.88 in W 15.25 in
Peintre et Modele Etching, Aquatint on Rives Paper, Modern, 1966
By Pablo Picasso
Located in Fairlawn, OH
Peintre et Modele Etching and aquatint on Rives wove paper, 1966 Signature stamp lower right (see photo) Annotated in pencil lower left: "epreuve avant acierage" (see photo) One of t...
Aquatint
$1,200
H 14.88 in W 13.88 in
The Crucifixion (Christ on the Cross) /// Jesus after Albrecht Dürer Old Masters
Located in Saint Augustine, FL
Artist: Lambrecht Hopfer (German, Active c. 1525-1550) Title: "The Crucifixion (Christ on the Cross)" Portfolio: (after) The Engraved Passion *Issued unsigned, though monogram signed by Hopfer in the plate (printed signature) lower right Circa: 1530, (published c. 1690, second state of three) Medium: Original Etching on laid paper Limited edition: Unknown Printer: The Hopfer family, Augsburg, Germany; (David Funck, Nuremberg, Germany) Publisher: The Hopfer family, Augsburg, Germany; (David Funck, Nuremberg, Germany) Framing: Recently framed, the sheet is floated over, and top-matted with a 100% cotton fabric rag mat from Holland in a wood moulding and Museum glass Framed size: 14.88" x 13.88" Sheet size: 5.5" x 3.63" Reference: Bartsch No. VIII.527.12; Hollstein No. 12.II Condition: Trimmed to platemark. A few tiny professional repairs: at elbow of Jesus's right arm and the inside thigh of Jesus. Some light skinning upper right corner and lower right area. It is otherwise a strong impression in good condition Very rare Notes: Provenance: private collection - Green Bay, WI; acquired from Sotheby's, New York, NY in c. 2015. The artist Lambrecht Hopfer's printed monogram signature "LH" lower right. The printer/publisher David Funck's (plate) number "182" lower right. This etching is after Albrecht Dürer’s 1511 engraving "The Crucifixion (Christ on the Cross)", ("Dürer-Katalog" - Meder No. 13, page 73). Printed in black from an iron plate. The image depicts Christ on the cross at center, the Virgin at left, two Maries behind her, St. John standing at right, a Roman solider behind him. It is after the eleventh plate of Dürer's sixteen plates from his 1507-1513 "The Engraved Passion" series, ("Dürer-Katalog" - Meder No. 3-18, page 70-74). "The print was originally designed without the number engraved in the lower margin (First state: Lambrecht Hopfer, c. 1530). The Hopfers' descendant David Funck (Nuremberg, 1642–1705) acquired over two hundred of their original iron plates, engraved numbers into them, and re-printed them around 1686-1700. The "182" indicates that "The Crucifixion" was the 182nd print in Funck’s series (Second state: David Funck, c. 1686-1700). About a century later, 92 of these plates were acquired by Carl Wilhelm Silberberg in Frankfurt and printed for the third and final time in the book "Opera Hopferiana", of which "The Crucifixion" was the 90th print (Third state: Carl Wilhelm Silberberg for "Opera Hopferiana", 1802)". - Elizabeth Upper, Cambridge University Library, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK Biography: Lambrecht (Lambert) Hopfer (Active c. 1525-1550) was a German Old Masters printmaker. He was the brother of Hieronymus Hopfer (Active c. 1520-1530) and son of Daniel Hopfer...
Etching, Laid Paper
Kiss, Hair, Hands
By John Baldessari
Located in Calabasas, CA
Artist: John Baldessari Title: Kiss, Hair, Hands Year: 1986 Medium: Etching with aquatint on Rives B.F.K paper Sheet: 29 x 19 3/4 inches (73.7 x 50.2 cm) Edition: 35; signed, numbere...
Etching, Aquatint
$95,000
H 77.75 in W 57.25 in D 12 in
Jonah Historically Regarded, from the Moby Dick Domes series, Signed, 1992
By Frank Stella
Located in Aventura, FL
From the Moby Dick Domes series. Aquatint, etching, engraving, relief, screen print and stencil with hand-coloring in acrylic on handmade, shaped TGL paper. Hand signed and dated l...
Paper, Acrylic, Engraving, Etching, Aquatint, Screen, Stencil
$1,500
H 42 in W 69 in D 0.5 in
Tracey Emin - Kiss Me Towel/Wall Hanging Lt. Ed. hand numbered Official COA New!
By Tracey Emin
Located in New York, NY
Tracey Emin Kiss Me Kiss Me Towel, 2014 with Official plate signed COA Brand new: unframed and comes folded (framed images for inspiration only) Limited Edition silkscreen on oversiz...
Cotton, Paper, Mixed Media, Screen
$2,800
H 60 in W 70 in D 0.3 in
"I Love You" Limited Edition towel/wall hanging (LARGE: 60 inches x 70 inches)
By Tracey Emin
Located in New York, NY
Tracey Emin I Love You/I Love Your Soul/I Love Your Smile, ca. 2010 100% Cotton Beach Towel 60 × 70 inches (folded it's 25 x 30 inches) Signed in plate, authorized printed...
Cotton, Screen, Mixed Media, Laid Paper
$875
H 25.5 in W 20 in D 1 in
Sandy Giclee Print on Handmade Cotton Paper, Signed Edition of 50
By Mark Kostabi
Located in Aventura, FL
Hand signed, dated and numbered by the artist. Giclee on hand made cotton paper. Image size 18.75 x 14 inches. Frame size approx 25.5 x 20 inches. Edition of 50. Artwork in excel...
Cotton, Paper, Giclée
$2,800
H 70 in W 60 in D 0.3 in
Kehinde Wiley - Andries Stilte Lt. Ed oversized Towel Wall Hanging 70" x 60"
By Kehinde Wiley
Located in New York, NY
Kehinde Wiley Andries Stilte oversized beach towel, 2008 Silkscreen on 100% Cotton Large Beach Towel or hanging tapestry 70 × 60 inches Edition of 2000 In original packaging with ta...
Cotton, Mixed Media, Screen
$1,061
H 9.26 in W 7.09 in
Waning Moon - 21st Century Contemporary Landscape Etching
By Charles Donker
Located in Nuenen, Noord Brabant
Charles Donker Waning Moon 23,5 x 18 (Framed included in price, 44,5 x 37 cm) Etching on paper The etchings of Charles Donker are admired and collected both in the Netherlands and a...
Etching
$1,500
H 20 in W 18.62 in D 2 in
A Star Of Unity, Hand Signed 3D Deluxe Edition, Edition of 200, 20x18 in. Framed
By Charles Fazzino
Located in Aventura, FL
Triple layered 3D constructed mixed media serigraph on acid free rag museum paper, hand embellished with 18 carat gold leafing paint with crystals and glitter. Hand signed lower rig...
Gold Leaf
$1,750
H 17 in W 14 in
My Education. Limited Signed Print, Michael St. Pierre with Bonkers '04 & Book
By Bruce Weber
Located in Los Angeles, CA
Bruce Weber. My Education. Art Edition No. 101–200, ‘Michael St. Pierre with Bonkers, Thousand Oaks, California’, 2004 Edition of 100 Archival pigment print on Hahnemühle Ultra Smoot...
Cotton, Archival Pigment
Kerry James Marshall "Vignette" Etching
By Kerry James Marshall
Located in Astoria, NY
Kerry James Marshall (American, b. 1955), "Vignette (Wishing Well)", Color aquatint, spitbite aquatint, softground, hardground, drypoint etching on chine collé, 2010, published Paul...
Paper, Etching, Aquatint
Untitled (Woman), 2010 - Hand-Signed
By Kerry James Marshall
Located in Brooklyn, NY
The etching Woman by Kerry James Marshall, published by Paulson Fontaine Press in Berkeley, California, is a limited edition work, signed and numbered 30/50 by the artist. Presented ...
Etching
Handsome Young Man, 2010 - Hand-Signed
By Kerry James Marshall
Located in Brooklyn, NY
This piece, Untitled (Handsome Young Man) by Kerry James Marshall, is a hardground etching with aquatint, hand-signed, titled, dated, and numbered by Marshall out of an edition of 50...
Etching, Aquatint
Sold
H 24.5 in W 19 in D 0.1 in
KERRY JAMES MARSHALL Untitled (Frankenstein), 2010 - Hand-Signed
By Kerry James Marshall
Located in Brooklyn, NY
"Frankenstein" by Kerry James Marshall is a significant artwork that delves into themes of race, identity, and societal dynamics. This hardground etching with aquatint, hand signed, ...
Etching
Sold
H 26.25 in W 21 in D 2 in
KERRY JAMES MARSHALL Woman, 2010 - Hand-Signed
By Kerry James Marshall
Located in Brooklyn, NY
The etching Woman by Kerry James Marshall, published by Paulson Fontaine Press in Berkeley, California, is a limited edition work, signed and numbered 30/50 by the artist. Presented ...
Etching
Sold
H 26.25 in W 21 in D 2 in
KERRY JAMES MARSHALL Handsome Young Man, 2010 - Hand-Signed
By Kerry James Marshall
Located in Brooklyn, NY
This piece, Untitled (Handsome Young Man) by Kerry James Marshall, is a hardground etching with aquatint, hand-signed, titled, dated, and numbered by Marshall out of an edition of 50...
Etching, Aquatint
Sold
H 24.5 in W 19 in
KERRY JAMES MARSHALL Untitled (Frankenstein), 2010 - Hand-Signed
By Kerry James Marshall
Located in Brooklyn, NY
Paper Size: 24.5 x 19 inches ( 62.23 x 48.26 cm ) Image Size: 16 x 12 inches ( 40.64 x 30.48 cm ) Framed: No Condition: A: Mint Additional Details: Hand signed, titled, dated and nu...
Etching
Sold
H 19 in W 25 in D 0.1 in
Kerry James Marshall Souvenir 1 Pillow Sham Mastry Los Angeles
By Kerry James Marshall
Located in Draper, UT
200 Produced on behalf of the 2017 Mastry Exhibition in Los Angeles Condition is sealed in original plastic 19 x 25 inches Digital Screenprint on Cotton Percale and Cotton Duck Thr...
Cotton
SCOUT SERIES SET OF 6
By Kerry James Marshall
Located in Washington , DC, DC
comes with original packaging
Thread
Supermodel by Kerry James Marshall
By Kerry James Marshall
Located in New York, NY
Kerry James Marshall Supermodel, 2000 Woodblock release print on Somerset velvet 330g 30 x 22 in Edition of 50
Woodcut
Sold
H 24.5 in W 19 in
Kerry James Marshall-Untitled (Handsome Young Man)-24.5" x 19"-Etching-2010
By Kerry James Marshall
Located in Brooklyn, NY
Paper Size: 24.5 x 19 inches ( 62.23 x 48.26 cm ) Image Size: 16 x 12 inches ( 40.64 x 30.48 cm ) Framed: No Condition: A: Mint Additional Details: Hand signed, titled, dated and numbered out of 50 in pencil by Marshall. Hardground etching with aquatint printed on Somerset white paper. Published by Paulson Fontaine Press...
Etching
Vignette (Wishing Well)
By Kerry James Marshall
Located in Brooklyn, NY
Hand signed, titled, dated and numbered out of 50 in pencil by Marshall. Color aquatint, spitbite aquatint and sugarlift aquatint with softground and hardground etching, scrape and burnish, drypoint and collage. Published by Paulson Fontaine Press...
Etching