Engaged in an ongoing dialogue with six centuries of representational painting, 

(b. 1955) is known for his expansive body of work, which also includes drawings and sculptures. At the center of his oeuvre is the critical recognition of the conditions of invisibility long ascribed to Black figures in the Western pictorial tradition, and the creation of what he calls a "counter-archive" that brings them back into this narrative.

Marshall was born in Birmingham, Alabama. He received his BFA from the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles in 1978, where he was later awarded an honorary doctorate in 1999. In 2014, Marshall joined David Zwirner. 

, an exhibition of new paintings by the artist, marked his first gallery solo show at David Zwirner in London that same year. 

Kerry James Marshall: History of Painting

, the artist’s second solo presentation with the gallery, was on view in London in 2018.

Marshall has exhibited widely throughout Europe and the United States since the late 1970s. In 2018, 

 was presented at the Rennie Museum in Vancouver and 

at The Cleveland Museum of Art. His site-specific outdoor sculpture 

 was also permanently installed in Hansen Triangle Park in downtown Des Moines, Iowa. From 2016 to 2017, 

, the first major museum survey of the artist’s work, was on view at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, followed by The Met Breuer, New York, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. In 2015, he created a large-scale mural specifically for the High Line, marking the artist’s first public commission in New York. In 2013, his work was the subject of a major survey entitled 

Kerry James Marshall: Painting and Other Stuff

. The exhibition was first on view at the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen in Antwerp. In 2014, it traveled to the Kunsthal Charlottenborg in Copenhagen and was co-hosted by two venues in Spain, the Fundació Antoni Tàpies in Barcelona and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid.

Other prominent institutions that have presented solo shows include the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC (2013); Secession, Vienna (2012); Vancouver Art Gallery (2010); San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (2009); and the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, Ohio (2008). Previous traveling solo exhibitions include those organized by the Camden Arts Centre, London (2005), Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (2003), and The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago (1998).

In 2023, Marshall unveiled his stained-glass window commission for the Washington National Cathedral, Washington, DC.

The artist has been the recipient of many awards and honors. The Royal Academy, London, elected the artist as an Honorary Royal Academician in 2023. Marshall received the 2019 W. E. B. Du Bois Medal, which is considered Harvard University's highest honor in the field of African and African American studies. In 2016, the artist was the recipient of the Rosenberger Medal given by The University of Chicago for outstanding achievement in the creative and performing arts. In 2014, he received the Wolfgang Hahn Prize, an award given annually by the Gesellschaft für Moderne Kunst at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne. In 2013, he was one of seven new appointees named to President Barack Obama's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. Other prestigious awards include a 1997 grant from the MacArthur Foundation and a 1991 fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Museum collections which hold works by the artist include the Art Institute of Chicago; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Marshall lives and works in Chicago.

Portrait of Kerry James Marshall, 2018. Photo by Jason Bell

Legendary Chicago-based painter Kerry James Marshall is as much an astute social critic and incredible authority on art history as he is a painter’s painter. In addition to reproductions of paintings, this book presents the text of a speech Marshall gave at Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany, upon receiving the Wolfgang Hahn Prize in 2014, a prize awarded annually to artists who have an “oeuvre that has consistently and substantially continued to develop and is recognized by international experts.”

In the lecture he talks about his life, about his interest in Afro-American culture, about social injustice, race relations, power dynamics, and ultimately calls for the black subject, so long ignored in art history, to finally be represented—in reaction to the fact that beauty has been synonymous with being white through almost all of art history.

Kerry James Marshall: Inside/Out

Kerry James Marshall: Inside/Out | Books

David Zwirner is an art gallery with locations in New York, Los Angeles, London, Paris and Hong Kong. We present physical and online exhibitions, podcasts, books, and more.