Title:
St. Francis of Adelaide
Style: Contemporary (ca. 1945-present)
Medium: Prints, Mixed Media, Multiples:/ Cast marble dust and resin
Year: 2006
Print/Casting Year: 2006
Size: height - 10 in, width - 12 in, depth - 5.5 in
Markings: signed, on bottom of bust base
Edition: 250
Foundry/Publisher: Cerealart
Estimate: from $1,500 to $2,500
Seller's Description:
Kehinde Wiley
St. Francis of Adelaide, 2006
Cast marble dust and resin
10 x 5.5 x 12 in. (25 x 14 x 30 cm.)
Edition of 250 hand signed and numbered
A neoclassical bust, St. Francis of Adelaid is reminiscent of a philosopher in Rafael’s legendary "School of Athens". The strong, athletic young man dressed in street attire holds a book, scepter and a cognac bottle substituted for a wine jug. His soul searching contemplative eyes are have the feeling of Cezanne's "Still Life with Skull" or Rogier van der Weyden "Portrait of a Man Holding a Book." The composition is familiar but the influences are beyond easy recognition. The philosopher appears as a hero in pursuit of revealing the universal truth in the 21st Century.
Kehinde Wiley’s (b. 1977) portraits of African American men collate modern culture with the influence of Old Masters. Incorporating a range of vernaculars culled from art historical references, Wiley’s work melds a fluid concept of modern culture, ranging from French Rococo to today’s urban landscape. By collapsing history and style into a unique contemporary vision, Wiley interrogates the notion of master painter, “making it at once critical and complicit.” Vividly colorful and often adorned with ornate gilded frames, Wiley’s large-scale figurative paintings, which are illuminated with a barrage of baroque or rococo decorative patterns, posit young black men, fashioned in urban attire, within the field of power reminiscent of Renaissance artists such as Tiepolo and Titian.
- "Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture", National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC
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