Kehinde Wiley

Stephen Friedman Gallery is pleased to announce the acquisition of Kehinde Wiley’s celebrated new series ‘The Prelude’ (2021) by the rennie collection. Exhibited by the National Gallery, London, to great acclaim between December 2021 and April 2022, it consists of five large-scale paintings and an immersive six-channel digital film.

Stephen Friedman Gallery presents a group exhibition of artists focusing on themes of diasporic cultures, migration and displacement. The exhibition explores the cultural inspirations the artists have found through travel and in connecting with their heritage.

Curated by Christophe Leribault, the exhibition 'Kehinde Wiley: An Archaeology of Silence' is hosted at Fondazione Giorgio Cini on the occasion of the 59th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. 

'Fashioning Masculinities: The Art of Menswear' is the first major V&A exhibition to celebrate the power, artistry and diversity of masculine attire and appearance. Contemporary looks by legendary designers and rising stars will be displayed alongside historical treasures from the V&A's collections and landmark loans: classical sculptures, Renaissance paintings, iconic photographs, and powerful film and performance.

We are thrilled to share a selection of recent museum acquisitions. ⁠

In his first collaboration with a major UK gallery, American artist Kehinde Wiley explores the artistic conventions and canons of the Western landscape tradition – mountainous, coastal, sublime, Romantic and transcendental – through the mediums of film and painting.

Kehinde Wiley will discuss his new exhibition at the National Gallery as part of the 'Friday Lates' series.

Kehinde Wiley is the recipient of Apollo’s Artist of the Year Award 2021 in advance of his exhibition ‘The Prelude' at The National Gallery opening 10 December 2021.

Black Rock Senegal and Kehinde Wiley announce the release of 'Dimietrus Study' (2021), the third annual limited edition print to support the Black Rock Senegal artist-in-residence program. 

Black Rock Senegal announce the 2022-2023 participants for the third year of its Artist-in-Residence program. Founded by renowned artist Kehinde Wiley in 2019, Black Rock Senegal seeks to support new artistic creation through collaborative exchange and to incite change in the global discourse about Africa. 

Yana Peel, Global Head of Arts & Culture at CHANEL joins artist Kehinde Wiley, and the photographer and activist Misan Harriman, in conversation. 

To celebrate 30 years of impact on culture and creativity, Interscope Records brings together an intergenerational group of visual artists including Cecily Brown, Lauren Halsey, Rashid Johnson, Takashi Murakami, Ed Ruscha and Kehinde Wiley into dialogue with groundbreaking musicians from the last three decades.

'30 Americans' is a touring group exhibition that showcases important contemporary artists from across the United States to explore how American art has shed light on issues of racial, sexual and historical identity. The works on display are aesthetically and thematically diverse, spanning painting, installation, sculpture and videos and created from 1970 to the present day. 

Jeffrey Deitch and Black Rock Senegal present Self-Addressed, an exhibition of self-portraits by contemporary African artists curated by Kehinde Wiley. 

Newly commissioned painting ‘A Portrait of a Young Gentleman’ by Kehinde Wiley features in the historic Thornton Portrait Gallery at The Huntington Library, San Marino, across from Thomas Gainsborough’s iconic painting ‘The Blue Boy’ (ca. 1770).

On the occasion of its twenty-fifth year at Art Basel, Stephen Friedman Gallery presents a group exhibition that highlights key milestones in the gallery’s history and its longstanding relationship with the fair.

Sam Ramos associate director of Innovation and Creativity, discusses the acclaimed and historically important portraits of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald's renditions made history as the first African American's to be comissioned by the National Portrait Gallery to create offical portraits of the president and the first lady.

Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald’s acclaimed and historically important portraits of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama go on display in association with Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.

A collaborative project with the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, this group exhibition celebrates 100 years of African American figurative art. This selection of seventy works including paintings, sculpture, prints, and photographs by fifty-two Black artists explores the African American experience from the Harlem Renaissance through the Civil Rights era to the current day.

Kehinde Wiley features in HBO documentary ‘Black Art: In the Absence of Light’. The feature-length documentary film focuses on artist, art historian and curator David Driskell, who championed African-American artists in the landmark survey, ‘Two Centuries of Black American Art’ held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1976. Assembled from interviews with artists, curators and scholars ‘Black Art: In the Absence of Light’ features some of the foremost Black visual artists of today’s contemporary art world.

Black Rock Senegal has revealed the participants for the second year of its artist-in-residence programme. Founded by Kehinde Wiley in 2019, Black Rock Senegal seeks to support new artistic creation through collaborative exchange and to incite change in global discourse about Africa. The second year of the programme will run between February and December 2021.

Two works by Kehinde Wiley have been installed at Barnard College, New York in the reception of Milbank Hall. The large-scale, oil-on-canvas paintings, “Portrait of Dorinda Essah” and “Portrait of Savannah Essah,” are part of a series of six paintings from the William Morris Gallery exhibit “Kehinde Wiley: The Yellow Wallpaper,” The paintings are on long-term loan to the College.

Public Art Fund was invited by Empire State Development to develop and direct a program of ambitious art installations for three prominent sites within the new Moynihan Train Hall, to be launched in January 2021. These very different commissions, by Stan Douglas, Elmgreen & Dragset, and Kehinde Wiley, demonstrate each artist’s ingenuity and vision.

The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts marks one year since the 2019 unveiling of Kehinde Wiley’s ‘Rumors of War’, presenting both outdoor and virtual events to "pay tribute to the sculpture’s power, beauty, and prophetic relevance". 

This illustrated catalogue was published in celebration of the gallery's 25th anniversary in conjunction with the group exhibition '25 Years' at Stephen Friedman Gallery, London (25 September – 7 November 2020). 

Museum of Fine Arts, St. Petersburg debuts its renovated collection galleries to the public on Tuesday 27 October. Included in this new presentation of the Museum's permanent collection is Kehinde Wiley's 'Leviathan Zodiac (The World Stage: Israel)', 2011 from the artist's celebrated series, 'The World Stage: Israel' which the Museum acquired in 2019. 

Presented in the historic location of medieval hospital Sint-Janshospitaal, this unique group show explores the legacy of fifteenth-century painter Hans Memling. The exhibition includes a series of intimate portraits by Kehinde Wiley, inspired by the legendary Flemish artist. 

For its inaugural exhibition, The Box presents 'Kehinde Wiley: Ship of Fools'. The show includes the three-channel digital film projection 'Narrenschiff' (Ship of Fools), which joined the museum's collection in 2018 thanks to the Contemporary Art Society Collections Fund at Frieze. 

Black Rock Senegal artist residency application cycle for Year 2 is open between 5–31 August 2020 to artists of all mediums and all nationalities. 

African-American artist Kehinde Wiley participated in an online conversation with the Duke of Devonshire and Sotheby's Chairman Oliver Barker as part of Sotheby's' '500 Years of Art: Summer Talks'.

'Kehinde Wiley: Painter of the Epic' at Centre d'art La Malmaison, Cannes is the first major survey of the African-American artist's work in France. Curated by Numa Hambursin, the exhibition brings together almost thirty works to demonstrate the complex visual vocabulary that has guided Wiley's practice for over a decade. 

For Art Basel’s second Online Viewing Room, Stephen Friedman Gallery presents a selection of artists including Marina Adams, Mamma Andersson, Juan Araujo, Leilah Babirye, Jonathan Baldock, Lisa Brice, Andreas Eriksson, Manuel Espinosa, Denzil Forrester, Channing Hansen, Jim Hodges, Deborah Roberts, Yinka Shonibare CBE, Kehinde Wiley and Luiz Zerbini. 

Featuring 90 contemporary artworks by 35 renowned American artists, 'The World Stage' showcases some of today’s global influencers alongside prominent names from the 20th-century art canon. The exhibition title is borrowed from a celebrated series of paintings by African-American artist Kehinde Wiley.