A Master Painter: Review of Kerry James Marshall’s ‘The Histories’ at the Royal Academy

      ‘The Histories’ is an explosion of Kerry James Marshall’s daring ambition and devout faith to the religion of Painting. Hope is important in times like these, and Marshall’s vibrant paintings glow with hope, innovation, and intrigue. ‘The Histories’ unfolds through eleven cycles of Marshall’s work, spanning five decades and numerous different styles and subjects. One element is always central: the Black figure.

     Born in 1955 in Birmingham, Alabama, Marshall’s upbringing as a person of colour in Jim Crow America paved the foundation for his artistic practice. Moving to LA in 1963, Marshall’s experience of the 1965 Watts uprisings proved pivotal to his engagement with displacing a narrative of white supremacy through his paintings. ‘ A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self’ (1980) was Marshall’s watershed moment, where it started to look like there was something that could be done with the Black figure.

     As the show moves through a series of thematically curated rooms, we are confronted with social issues on a grand scale from housing to romance to the ocean crossings of the transatlantic slave trade. Each shares Marshall’s distinct visual language- collage, vibrancy, the colour black, abstract and mystical elements, references to important civil rights moments. Marshall departs from tradition in his favouring of acrylic paint and its fast drying times. Collage and glitter on the painting surfaces subvert what we expect ‘painting’ to be, creating layered and exuberant visual feasts.

     Historical allusions and connections both elevate and ground Marshall’s paintings. He taps into historical tropes, anointing his paintings with infinite woven layers and folds.

     My whole concept of what it meant to be an artist was formed around the idea that you picked subjects that were historical and meaningful so that people could derive meaning in their lives from the things they saw in paintings. That’s really how I began to understand what it meant to be an artist.

     We can glean endless value through comparison of new and old art, forging connections or diverse meaning, or unpicking what we know art to be ‘about’.  I see a tender kinship between Marshall’s works and those of fifteenth-century painter Piero Della Francesca. I invite you to make comparisons of your own.

     In the exhibition’s third room dwells Marshall’s 1993 masterpiece ‘De Style’ standing at 309x264cm. In the barbershop we find five men. The barber is the Virgin Mary, and the man having his hair cut is Jesus. The barber stands with a biblical hand in the air over the man’s head, and a shaver in the other, in motion. His hallowed eyes look out of the painting to meet our gaze, tired, carrying the weight of being the holy mother of Jesus, or of being a Black man. A halo, borrowed from Fra Angelico’s ‘The Dominican Blessed’ radiates from his head. The man being shaved is only feet and a head- the rest of him is a draping barber’s cape, pale pink, flat, with early renaissance shadowing, hanging freely from his shoulders and clinging to his knees on the way down. His vulnerability is uncomfortably loud as he sits, intimate, bound with draping cloth, helpless, passive, doomed to an uncertain future. On the floor surrounding his chair sits thick, black, curly spirals of fallen hair. A temporal marker- we’ve walked in at the end of the action, and the haircut is almost done.

     A man, his role unknown (shop owner? Client? Friend?) stands assertively, his eyes dancing off to our left, out of frame. His posture is relaxed yet confident and he’s sharply dressed in a black suit with pops of white. Take a step closer to him and a whole new world of detail emerges: a signet ring and cuff links, intricate stripes on his seemingly plain shirt, tiny glistening stars on his shoes that emphasise to us his pride and style. Hair products sitting on shelves with full names and labels; posters; a diagram of the female reproductive system (Why?); a calendar dating the scene to 1991 when Rodney King was violently assaulted by police officers in Los Angeles.

     Two more men sit waiting in the wings. One of these men stares back at us, returning our gaze. His elaborate tall hair is mirrored in a houseplant on the countertop next to him. There is stillness across the men’s faces. They seem calm and devoid of overt intense emotion. The last man is only knees, hands, and a STUD ring. This is a cultural oasis for the Black community. It is a place of masculinity, but also of safety and solace. Divinity and magic. I have interrupted them.

     The geometric nature of Marshall’s composition harks back to Piet Mondrian’s 1920s works with horizontal and vertical lines, focus on primary colours, high contrasts and frequent use of shape and pattern. But there are unexplained mystical elements. Above the mirror floats mystery curved, cream, oval-like shapes. A smattering of peachy-baby-pink stars float above the men’s heads, each inscribed with identical text K7. What does this mean? 7 for spirituality? These details tip the painting into the realm of the magical/ ethereal/ biblical. Is this a contemporary take on an early renaissance masterpiece?

     Dating between 1460-70, Piero della Francesca’s masterpiece ‘Virgin and Child Enthroned with Four Angels’ stands at 107x67cm. Central to the painting is the Virgin Mary sat with baby Jesus on her lap. Mary is caught in motion handing Jesus a carnation. Her eyes, downward facing, are somber and stoical, carrying the weight of being the holy mother of Jesus. Jesus, naked and oddly proportioned, sits upon the flowing folds of fabric of Mary’s dress- teal, flat, with early renaissance shadowing, tumbling to the floor. Jesus’s vulnerability is loud as he sits, completely naked, helpless, passive, doomed to an uncertain future. The platform under Mary and Jesus is decorated with seven carved roses, seven being a spiritual number. Jesus’s outstretched hand reaches for the flower-a temporal marker- we’ve walked into the action mid-happening, but Jesus’s fate is already sealed.

     The angel on the far right stands assertively, his eyes looking out of the painting to meet our gaze. His posture is relaxed yet confident and he’s clad in brick red robes with elaborate folds around the waist. His outstretched fingers hit Mary’s behind him; here Della Francesca experiments with depth and space. Take a step closer and a whole new world of detail emerges: a whispery fine veil over Mary’s hair, a dense tangle of too many fingers (Why?) The angel behind looks towards Mary and Jesus, clad in intricate, finely painted jewellery. He’s quite stylish.

     Another angel stands to the left, his wings the same peachy-baby-pink as the carnation in Mary’s hand. There is stillness across everyone’s faces. They seem calm and devoid of overt intense emotion. The last angel is only a side profile, stood surveying the scene in white robes, arms crossed. This is a biblical oasis. Divinity and magic. I have interrupted them.

      The geometric nature of della Francesca’s architecture marks his innovative eye for cleverly manipulating perspective. This piece was a radical work for della Francesca- he has squeezed this multi-figure composition into a pioneering rectangular frame (probably because the piece was made for smaller-scale private worship.) The room features three Corinthian columns (some foreshortened) and distinct horizontal and vertical lines alongside elaborate cornicing. The room looks to be both pushed back, pinched, and pulled in. Sweeping curved oval-like shapes hang from the room’s architecture, disrupting its geometry. The painter likes to hide jewels and witticisms in his paintings; there are seven flowers on the base of the scene, and many more hidden references to the number seven. What does this mean? 7 for spirituality? These details tip the painting into the realm of the magical/ ethereal/ biblical. Is this an ancestor of Marshall’s ‘De Style’?

     Despite being made over five hundred years apart, these two paintings melt into each other to share intrinsic qualities- order and the subverting of order, people, structure, magic. Two ends of the same woven thread of history painting that share a core despite their differences. Marshall has dedicated his career to the painting of histories, having nurtured a lifelong relationship with the craft and canon of painting. Studying under Sam Clayberger in the late 1970s at the Otis Art Institute, Marshall is a master of painting and drawing and his work has always built upon traditional painting processes and themes.

     I wanted to use all the colour complexity that I’d learned from Clayberger, but keep it close to Black history and culture.

     The show is overwhelming. There is too much work on show, making it difficult to stop and focus on any one painting; a paradox of choice. It’s hard to infiltrate the huge mass of works and the vast amount of different themes and styles which are each important and disruptive in their own way. By time I reach the exit, the works have dissolved into a slippery blur that I can’t quite catch hold of.

     1- The Academy. 2- Invisible Man. 3- The Painting of Modern Life. 4- Middle Passage. 5- Pantheon. 6- Vignettes. 7- Souvenirs. 8- The Painting of Modern Life II. 9- Africa Revisited. 10- Wake/ Gulf Stream. 11- Red Black Green.

     Head curators Mark Godfrey and Adrian Locke have successfully moulded Marshall’s work into a narrative of their own choosing in both the show, exhibition catalogue, and wider discourse. Godfrey previously curated exhibition ‘Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power’. Does it matter that the show was steered by white male curators? On one hand, Godfrey and Locke are experienced curators with vast experience coordinating shows for London’s publics. Being of a different racial background to the artists they work with could spark and meaningful conversations and new perspectives, enriching the work as a whole. On the other hand, by choosing these curators, the Royal Academy is yet again a disciple to tradition, letting only one type of person (white, male) write the narratives within the discourse of art. It could be an interesting change to disrupt the status quo of institutions like the RA, and to hand different people the pen to write the narratives. The tightrope between tradition and innovation is a precarious one to walk.

     The Royal Academy embodies affluence. Housed in London’s wealthy Piccadilly, all of its exhibitions- including ‘The Histories’ - will cost visitors between nineteen and twenty-five pounds. It’s simply inaccessible most of the population. And their exclusivity is starting to bite- since the pandemic, the RA’s visitorship has almost halved. ‘The Histories’ is limited in its scope when it’s only being seen by certain groups of people, and often this doesn’t include the people it depicts.

     I am acutely aware of the weakness of my position within the wider world, and even more so in the institutional structure of the art world. We were not present at the creation. Black people are no more involved in the codification of ‘Art World’ terms than we were signatories to the Treaty of Versailles, when Western powers and Russia further carved up Africa into their provinces of influence. As late comers, we do not yet control enough independent institutions.

     In London, we pay twenty pounds (plus travel costs) to visit an institution and see blackness as the subject within painting. Yet white-centric art seems to be everywhere- on posters in the street or on a celebrity’s instagram or a mug or a t-shirt or a tea towel at your Gran’s house. Phone cases, bedsheets, greetings cards, screensavers, social media profile pictures, at the pub, on the news. White-centric art is the mainstream, the cultural default, served up to us on a silver platter for consumption and easily chewable and digestible. Marshall is no stranger to this paradox; his own painting influences include ‘white’ art. Because not enough art about blackness exits. And when it does it’s often grabbed and gate-kept by white temple institutions who straighten its river into their own discourse. 

     Equally, without such institutions, ‘The Histories’ wouldn’t exist. The show is definitely a force for good. It challenges our preconceptions and ideas and defiantly, unapologetically puts Black subjects centre stage. No longer are people of colour banished to the murky corners of famous paintings (think: Manet’s Olympia) but they are the paintings. They are finally occupying space on gallery walls. It’s disappointing that ‘The Histories’ is considered groundbreaking. It shouldn’t be.

     If there’s one word that’s a recurring engine, its “presence”. It’s about establishing presence. It’s a presence that’s not contingent on someone else’s approval.

     Marshall embodies blackness through sensitive use of black pigments. Ivory black is not the same as carbon black, and carbon black is not the same as iron-oxide black, or Mars black. Rather than painting skin with a strictly realistic palette, Marshall uses only nuances of the colour black for his people, and ensures they’re the focus by refraining from using black in the rest of his colour mixing. These black tones carry huge weight. They feel heavy, concentrated, dense, potent; full bodied, flat in a Renaissance-way, with tacit colour variations within the pigment family of black. The weight of the people’s histories live within the paint. Marshall embodies blackness in his paintings. He represents absence through colour, and manages to debunk the binary in the process.

     Blackness becomes a noun, not an adjective.

     These precious black pigments are integral to all paintings in ‘The Histories’ , but none as much as in ‘Black Painting’ (2003) which is entirely monochrome. This painting is easily ignored (as most visitors seemed to be doing) being a plain black rectangle on first glance. The longer I look the painting magically reveals itself, like invisible ink slowly melting, melting, melting into itself, to reveal an intimate bedroom scene rendered in exquisite nuances of non-colour. A couple lie in a bed wrapped in its covers, surrounded by homely objects like artwork on the walls, a book on the dresser, kicked off high heels and a banner reading ‘Power to the People’ . ‘Black Painting’ pushes the boundaries of perception, exemplifying Marshall’s commitment to painterly experimentation, where blackness is both the medium and subject matter.

     The timing of ‘The Histories’ is poignant as the UK feels the creeping resurgence of far-right political thinking. One week before The Histories opened its doors to the public, London saw its largest fascist protest in decades. On September 14th over one hundred thousand white supremacists descended on Whitehall, less than a mile from where ‘The Histories’ was being installed at the Royal Academy. Echoes of Marshall’s home country are never far away, with banners reading “RIP Charlie Kirk” and Elon Musk addressing the crowds by video link. In photos and videos of the event you’d be hard pressed to spot a single person of colour amongst the crowd of Union Jack clad middle-aged men.

     As a society, we seem to love to impose activist intentions or meanings on any art made by a person of colour. Why don’t we do this for white artists? White artists are allowed to create art just for being art- it's allowed to exist in itself without having political narratives and agendas thrust upon it. I think it's important to take cues from minority artists on how they intend for their work to exist within the canon. For Marshall, this is key:

     I never think of [my] artwork as having a quality that’s intended to mobilize people to action. They don’t make people do things. But they do put questions in the mind of a viewer that they may not have entertained before.

     What I’m not doing is making work that addresses the idea of racism. What I am doing is establishing a presence.

     Marshall is a fine artist first and foremost. We should treat his work as such, rather than searching for undercurrents just because his subjects are Black. Marshall reaffirms to use what many cultural institutions- bound up by systemic racial prejudices- try to deny: that Black people can exist in art without serving an activist purpose. They can be muses and subjects just for the sake of being muses and subjects.Art about blackness is just Art.

     No matter what background you come from, ‘The Histories’ packs a punch, is wonderfully stimulating, and often strange. This retrospective seems to beckon us inside Marshall’s mind, inviting us to witness his playful and radical visions for what paintings can be. Challenging the absence of the Black figure in art, Marshall sparks introspection and conversation around our institutional biases- whether overt or subliminal. This exhibition is a reckoning. Marshall bears all the genius of a Renaissance draughtsman, but with a bit more glitter and a lot more power.