For over 40 years, Chicago-based artist Kerry James Marshall has made it his mission to artistically represent black men and women in painting and sculpture. Drawing on the traditions of Western painting that he encountered in books and museums as a child, and blending them with other sources of contemporary culture and science fiction, Marshall places black bodies front and center in his figurative paintings and murals. Lyrical works that are both commentaries on the past and projections of more optimistic futures, often executed on a large scale. This exhibition features 70 of Marshall’s works, including a new series of paintings made specifically for the exhibition and his commemorative sculpture Wake that evolves each time it is exhibited.
An exhibition celebrates Edwin Austin Abbey, a 19th-century American artist, showcasing his study for the monumental work The Hours created for the Pennsylvania State Capitol.