Kehinde Wiley
Artist
Biography
Kehinde Wiley (b. 1977, Los Angeles) is an American painter known for his reimagining of the traditions of portraiture and history painting, depicting Black subjects in the poses and settings of Old Master paintings. He earned a BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and an MFA from Yale University. His work has been the subject of major solo exhibitions at institutions including the de Young Museum, San Francisco; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Musée du Quai Branly, Paris; Fondazione Giorgio Cini, Venice; and The National Gallery, London. In 2018 his portrait of Barack Obama entered the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., making him the first African American artist to paint an official U.S. presidential portrait. In 2019 he founded Black Rock Senegal, an artist residency in Dakar. He lives and works in New York and Nigeria.