UCLA Journal of Radiation Oncology SPRING 2024 - Flipbook - Page 12
UCLA RADIATION ONCOLOGY JOURNAL
McCurdy told me, “His body of work, the way he takes
historical examples of portraiture and other compositions
and retools them with contemporary 昀椀gures, that
was a really interesting approach for us to be able to
make connections across our portrait collection with
contemporary practice and the way he diversi昀椀es his
sitters, his models, and it was important for us to bring
in people who look di昀昀erent from the portraits that are
on our wall.” Indeed, while the model’s pose is similar to
the original, there is a more contemporary spin with both
stance and attire of our time, the pose activated by being
less formal and direct-facing. The two 昀椀gures, by not being
identical in pose or even mirror images, interact as two
con昀椀dent young men in conversation.
share metrics about the broader, more diverse audiences
visiting directly corresponding to the addition of Wiley’s
painting to the collection.
Kehinde Wiley’s paintings of Black men and women are
vital to conversations about Black history and the current
reality Black people face. But Wiley’s paintings are also
beautiful. What draws the viewer to his work is that he,
as the Grand Manner artists he admired in his youth had
hundreds of years prior, is painting beautiful people with
exquisite skill in brilliant tones. ☐
For more information on Kehinde Wiley or to inquire
about available work, please contact his gallery, Roberts
Projects, at www.robertsprojectsla.com or 323-549-0223.
Wiley had intended to cast his model in Los Angeles—
since the Huntington is local and because he grew up in
Los Angeles—but when the pandemic-era lockdowns took
e昀昀ect, he was working in his studio in Senegal. The young
Senegalese man he chose is rumored to be a surfer, but
again, Wiley has not con昀椀rmed this, and ultimately it is
the young man’s presence and portrayal that is important.
Experiencing how the two paintings interact is remarkable
and has further ensured the art world’s shift toward
normalizing Black people being portrayed and celebrated
in public art collections.
Kehinde Wiley, A Portrait of a Young Gentleman, 2021. Oil on
linen. Canvas: 70 1/2 × 49 1/8 in. (179.1 × 124.8 cm.) frame: 87 ×
64 × 5 1/4 in. (221 × 162.6 × 13.3 cm.) © Kehinde Wiley. Collection
of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens;
Commissioned through Roberts Projects, Los Angeles; Gift of Anne
F. Rothenberg, Terry Perucca and Annette Serrurier, and the Philip
and Muriel Berman Foundation. Additional support was provided by
Laura and Carlton Seaver, Kent Belden and Dr. Louis Re, and Faye and
Robert Davidson.
Thomas Gainsborough (British, 1727-1788), The Blue Boy, 1770.
Oil on canvas, 70 5/8 × 48 3/4 × 1 in. The Huntington Library, Art
Wiley’s A Portrait of a Young Gentleman 昀椀rst debuted in
October 2021 and continues to exhibit directly across from
The Blue Boy in the Thornton Portrait Gallery. McCurdy
told me that she encourages all to visit to view the works
in person. She said, “I think it has just transformed the
Portrait Gallery at the Huntington, and it’s enlivened
it in a way that we were hoping for, but we didn’t quite
expect how powerful the connection across the gallery
would be between the historic painting of The Blue Boy
and Kehinde’s new version of it, which is something that
really comes through in person.” While she doesn’t track
the numbers of visitors, she has heard anecdotally that a
larger, younger audience have been visiting. She hopes
that at some point they will have enough data to be able to
Museum, and Botanical Gardens.
Kehinde Wiley, Portrait of Ya Fatu Conteh, 2024. Oil on canvas.
Canvas: 96 x 72 in (243.8 x 182.9 cm) frame: 107 x 83 x 5 in (271.8
x 210.8 x 12.7 cm). Courtesy of the Artist and Roberts Projects, Los
Angeles. Photo: Paul Salveson
Contributed by: Ciara Shuttleworth
Ciara Shuttleworth is an alumnus of the prestigious San Francisco Art
Institute. She has worked for three prominent San Francisco fine art
galleries. Additionally, she has provided art consulting for private and
corporate collections, including Google. She is also a published writer
with works in the Norton Introduction to Literature and The New
Yorker. Her most recent book is the poetry collection, Rabbit Heart.
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