Kerry James Marshall

Kerry James Marshall is best known for large-scale paintings that center Black figures in scenes of everyday life, history, gardens, interiors, and museums. His work often uses very dark black skin tones as a deliberate visual and political choice.

Mastry was Kerry James Marshall's major retrospective that opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in 2016. It later traveled to the Met Breuer in New York and MOCA in Los Angeles.

Marshall was born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1955 and later grew up in Los Angeles. The civil rights era and the Watts neighborhood both inform how his paintings think about Black history and public space.

Past Times is one of Marshall's most famous paintings and became widely discussed after selling for a record price at auction in 2018. The painting shows Black leisure in a park scene, turning ordinary recreation into monumental history painting.