About 10 years ago, the artist Kerry James Marshall caught a crow with his bare hands.
The bird was cornered awkwardly near Mr. Marshall’s home on the South Side of Chicago, and curiosity got the better of him. “I’ve always been impressed by that kind of bird,” he recalled the other day.
Mr. Marshall, widely acknowledged as one of the best painters working today, wanted to photograph and take video of the crow, since he often used such documentation as the basis for his work (he prefers props now). So he grabbed it and took it home.
“At first he screamed like he was being murdered,” Mr. Marshall said. “The minute I put him by my side, he got quiet.”
On his second-floor deck, Mr. Marshall tied a cord to the crow’s leg, and provided a meal of mulberries “so he wouldn’t starve.” He showed the crow to his wife and documented the bird as planned. The next day, he let the bird go.
Some days later, he saw the crow being menaced by a cat. Mr. Marshall recalled: “So I picked up a rock and threw it at the cat. And I swear to God, that same bird, he stood there just looking at me. And I said, ʻYou better keep your butt off the ground because I’m not going to be around to save you the next time.’”
The crow meeting, which started out as research, somehow edged into a metaphysical encounter with deeper meanings, and it now informs Mr. Marshall’s newest series of paintings. His first two canvases officially debut Thursday in an online show, “Studio: Kerry James Marshall,” at David Zwirner Gallery through Aug. 30.
As he has for decades, Mr. Marshall, 64, has harnessed history, especially the history of painting, in these new canvases: They are his reimagining of John James Audubon’s landmark series, “Birds of America,” the painstakingly rendered 435 watercolors made in the first half of the 19th century, significant achievements in the fields of both ornithology and art.
In one image, “Black and part Black Birds in America: (Crow, Goldfinch),” a large crow dominates the canvas, clearly too large for the birdhouses depicted behind it. There are glorious leaves, flowers and a small goldfinch in the bottom left corner. In the other picture, finished just last week, “Black and part Black Birds in America: (Grackle, Cardinal & Rose-breasted Grosbeak),” a grackle is the protagonist with a dainty birdhouse and brightly colored flowers. The cardinal and grosbeak are both flying in different directions, giving them a sense of being at cross purposes with the grackle.