KEHINDE WILEY born on this date is an American portrait painter based in New York City. He is known for his naturalistic paintings of Black people that reference the work of Old Master paintings. In 2017, Wiley was commissioned to paint former President Barack Obama’s portrait for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. The Columbus Museum of Art hosted an exhibition of his work in 2007 and describes his paintings as “heroic portraits which address the image and status of young African-American men in contemporary culture.” Wiley was included in Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2018.
In his childhood, Wiley’s mother wanted her children to stay out of the streets and so she encouraged an interest in art through enrollment in after-school art classes. At the age of 11, Wiley and his brother were selected with 48 other children to study briefly at an art conservatory near St. Petersburg in Russia. It was there that Wiley developed his passion for portraiture. Wiley noted that his brother was better at portraiture than he was, and this fueled a sense of competition between them. The siblings would compete to see who could recreate the most realistic images. Upon his return to the US, Wiley continued studying art and attended high school at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts.
The beginnings of Wiley’s now-famous portraits can be traced back to his time in Harlem, New York, during his residency at the Studio Museum. It was at this time he came upon a crumpled mugshot released by the New York Police Department. On it was a photo of an African American man in his twenties with his basic personal information in order for the man to be identified. Wiley held onto this mugshot and it would inspire some of his future work, including Conspicuous Fraud Series #1 (Eminence), as well as a recreation of this mugshot in Mugshot Study (2006, Plate 8).
When later commenting on his fascination with the mugshot and its influence in his art, Wiley noted that when he found it on the street, it altered his view of what portraiture could be and solidified his feelings about the portrayal of black men in the world. Wiley saw that there was something lacking in this portrayal and turned to his background in classical paintings. His comparisons between this new type of portraiture and the ones he studied from the eighteenth century sparked inspiration and led Wiley to create a combination of his modern portraiture and classic styles from history.
Obama’s portrait took Wiley over two years, from the first conversation about the commission to the unveiling which took place in February 2018, at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery. This gallery is where past president portraits have been displayed outside the White House. While other presidential portraits show their subjects in a more realistic representation with an office in order to communicate their authority, Wiley depicted Obama seated casually on an antique chair, seemingly floating among foliage. Each flower points to a location which represents an event that happened in Obama’s life, such as the chrysanthemum, the official flower of the city of Chicago (where he was elected as senator); African lilies, representing Kenya to show respect to Obama’s father, who died when he was a young adult; and jasmine, representing Obama’s childhood in Hawaii with his grandparents.
Wiley has kept his personal life private but acknowledges that he identifies as a gay man. In reference to his sexuality Wiley has said “my sexuality is not black and white. I am a gay man who has drifted. I am not bi. I’ve had perfectly pleasant romances with women, but they weren’t sustainable. My passion wasn’t there. I would always be looking at guys.”
Between 2014 and 2018, he created Black Rock Senegal in Yoff, an artist residence designed by Senegalese architect Abib Djenne.
In May 2024, Wiley was accused of sexual assault by artist Joseph Awuah-Darko, who claimed that Wiley had assaulted him twice in June 2021 during and after a dinner in Ghana. Wiley denied the accusations, stating that the two had been in a “brief, consensual relationship”.