About This Installation
This installation is curated by Christine Sciacca, Curator of European Art, 1300-400 CE.
Ongoing
Kehinde Wiley
Kehinde Wiley, Saint Amelie, 2014. Museum purchase with funds provided by William A. Bradford and the W. Alton Jones Foundation Acquisition Fund, 2022. Acquisition In Honor of Jacqueline “Jackie” Tibbs Copeland (1947-2023), Walters Art Museum Director of Education and Public Programming, Deputy Director for Audience Engagement, and Special Advisor on Strategic Partnerships (2000-2015), an enthusiastic advocate for audiences of all ages and backgrounds who also led the museum to acquire works that expand the representation of women and artists of color.
Saint Amelie is one in a series of twelve freestanding stained glass panels by Kehinde Wiley that depict contemporary portraits of young Black residents of Brooklyn, New York. It mirrors the form, composition, figural pose, and framing of historic stained glass windows from the medieval and Renaissance periods (examples of which are on view nearby this work), and specifically a window titled Saint Amelie by the French Neoclassical painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780‒1867).
Wiley honors his subject, Kern Alexander, whom he used as a model in multiple works, by depicting him in a context traditionally reserved for Christian saints and religious contemplation. Like much of Wiley’s work, Saint Amelie explores the invisibility of Black people within the traditional art historical canon.