Title:
Louis XVI, the Sun King
Style: Contemporary (ca. 1945-present)
Medium: Prints, Mixed Media, Other Cast Metals. Multiples:/Cast marble dust and resin
Year: 2006
Print/Casting Year: 2006
Size: height - 9.5 in, width - 10 in, depth - 3 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
Louis XVI, the Sun King, 2006
Cast marble dust and resin
9.5 x 3 x 10 in. (24 x 8 x 25 cm.)
Edition of 250 hand signed and numbered
The bust is a Bernini influenced, Baroque style composition positioning a young man dressed in contemporary urban street attire styled as a 17th Century monarch. he heroic pose is vigorously alive and imperious. The cloak, or hoodie in this case, is swept up, as if by a gust of wind, and the figure turns with resolute composure in the direction of the wind, as if calmly facing a challenge.
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 Incorporating a range of vernaculars culled from art historical references, Wiley’s work melds a fluid concept of modern culture, ranging from French Rococo to today’s urban landscape.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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