The Way of Nature: Art from Japan, China, and Korea @ Baltimore Museum of Art

The Way of Nature

Art from Japan, China, and Korea

Baltimore Museum of Art

September 21, 2025 - March 8, 2026

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents The Way of Nature: Art from Japan, China, and Korea, which draws on the museum’s extensive holdings to consider the importance of nature in East Asian cultures. The exhibition features more than 40 objects, from magnificent ink drawings to beautifully crafted stoneware and poignant contemporary photographs and prints. Collectively, the works reflect on nature as a vital source of creative inspiration and spiritual connection and consider human existence within the complexity of the vast natural world across centuries and into the present day. The Way of Nature: Art from Japan, China, and Korea is part of the BMA’s Turn Again to the Earth initiative, which explores the relationships between art and the environment.

“The Way of Nature offers an insightful look at the intertwining roots of artistic expression and the experience of the natural world through vibrant works from the BMA’s Asian art collection. It’s an exciting opportunity to see objects on view for the first time, or in a long time, through a lens that is both accessible and meaningful, as many of us seek connection through and to nature,” said Asma Naeem, the BMA’s Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director. “As the BMA focuses on expanding its collection with the work of artists from around the globe, we are excited to continue to share more of our holdings, and the stories they contain, with our community.”

The Way of Nature is organized around four overarching themes that engage with elemental aspects of the natural world and human intervention within it. The exhibition opens with a section that examines depictions, interpretations, and connections to the qualities of air, water, and stone. Among the highlights is a handmade Fireman's Coat (hikeshi banten) with Hawk and Waves (Japan, early- to mid-20th century) by an unidentified artist. The intricately sewn object depicts a hawk soaring above turbulent waves, suggesting that the firefighter who chose the design sought the protective powers of water, strength, and keen vision. During a fire, the beautiful imagery would have been worn on the interior, only to be revealed once the fire was extinguished. The section also includes works such as the evocative ink drawing Water and Mountain Landscape (China, 1955) by the artist Huang Junbi and the densely decorated wood and jade sculpture Miniature Mountain with Longevity Motifs (China, late 18th - early 19th century) by an unidentified artist. 

The second section explores the significance of the changing seasons as visual indicators of nature’s transformative power, whether in the experience of wild terrain or in meticulously tended gardens. Across East Asia, emblems of the seasons, such as plums for the spring and chrysanthemums for the fall, are both often shared within communities and widely referenced in art. A case in this section includes a range of objects featuring plum blossoms, such as the hanging scroll Plum Branch and Full Moon (Japan, 1905-1915) by Kamisaka Sekka and the stoneware Bowl Decorated with Plum Branch and Crescent Moon (China, 13th century) by an unidentified artist. The section also includes a stunning Buddhist Priest's Robe (Kesa) in Karaori with Floral Designs (Japan, 1750-1868) by an unidentified artist.

The Way of Nature continues with works that capture human intrusion into the natural realm, as artists reveal humanity’s environmental impact through both imagery of calamitous events and in more subtle and ambiguous scenes. In his series Between Mountains and Water (2014–2017), Chinese artist Zhang Kechun examined the effects of human activities on the landscape in Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, while Japanese artist Leiko Shiga documented the aftermath of Japan’s 2011 earthquake and tsunami in the poignant photo series Rasen Kaigan. The exhibition concludes with consideration of the spiritual transcendence that can be found in nature. This final section is anchored by the eight-panel screen Ten Symbols of Long Life (Korea, mid- to late 19th century) by an unidentified artist. The complex screen incorporates eight separate paintings to convey a wish for longevity, as embodied through such symbols as cranes, bamboo, water, and sun.

The Way of Nature: Art from Japan, China, and Korea is curated by Frances Klapthor, BMA Associate Curator of Asian Art.

BMA - BALTIMORE ART MUSEUM 

10 Art Museum Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218

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Matsumi Kanemitsu @ Baltimore Museum of Art - Figure and Fantasy

Matsumi Kanemitsu: Figure and Fantasy 

Baltimore Museum of Art 

May 14 - October 8, 2023 

Matsumi Kanemitsu 

Fish in a Pond. 1949 

The Baltimore Museum of Art: 

Bequest of J. Blankfard Martenet 2012.711.22

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) will present Matsumi Kanemitsu: Figure and Fantasy, an exhibition of 60 works by the American artist created during and shortly after the artist’s residence in Baltimore, including rarely and never-before-seen paintings, drawings, and sculpture. Over the course of his life, Matsumi Kanemitsu (1922-1992) created a remarkable body of work that blended reflections on personal experience with imaginative fantasy. While he worked across media, he is most recognized for the evocative ink drawings and prints that he created after becoming associated with the Abstract Expressionist movement. The BMA’s exhibition emphasizes the depth and range of the early, largely figurative drawings created during a pivotal moment in the artist’s career when he was living in Baltimore in the late 1940s, before his association with the New York School. The BMA hosted the artist’s first museum exhibition in 1954, and seven decades later, it is introducing new audiences to the artist’s work in the Stanley Mazaroff and Nancy Dorman Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings and Photographs. 

“Matsumi Kanemitsu is an important second-generation Abstract Expressionist and one of the most talented draftsmen of the 20th century. While he was affiliated with both the New York and Los Angeles art communities, Figure and Fantasy provides an opportunity to explore the artist’s little known, but highly influential time in Baltimore, and reveals how his years in our city helped establish his artistic voice,” said Asma Naeem, the BMA’s Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director. “The exhibition also advances our knowledge beyond the small circle of well-recognized names to capture a deeper and truer history of Post-War American art.”

Figure and Fantasy is organized thematically to highlight the ways in which Matsumi Kanemitsu’s period of self-reflection in Baltimore following World War II established the trajectory of his career. The exhibition is drawn exclusively from gifts made by J. Blankfard Martenet (1898–1957), a Baltimore collector who befriended Matsumi Kanemitsu and was instrumental in launching his career. These rarely seen works capture the artist’s distinct synthesis of eastern and western aesthetics and poignant expressions of his lived experiences—his boyhood in Japan, his fascination with the humble aspects of daily life, his dual experience as both an enlisted U.S. soldier and a prisoner of the U.S. military, and portraits of those who formed his community in Baltimore. The exhibition also explores the significance of the relationship between artist and patron, and the ways in which Martenet’s commitment to the artist has led to the preservation of a critical part of his work and career.

Matsumi Kanemitsu - Short Biography

Matsumi Kanemitsu (b. Ogden, UT 1922; d. Los Angeles, CA 1992) was born to Japanese immigrants in Utah. At an early age, his parents sent him to live with his grandparents outside of Hiroshima. His childhood in Japan would later inspire his interest and engagement with emotive depictions of flora and fauna reminiscent of the country’s landscapes. He returned to the United States in 1940 and enlisted in the U.S. Army prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Despite his American citizenship, his Japanese heritage led to his detention and confinement. Matsumi Kanemitsu’s time in the Army intensified his experience of living between two worlds, an emotional and psychological toll that would influence his work as an artist. Yet, his service provided opportunities to live in Europe, where he became immersed in the arts, visiting museums and connecting with other artists, including Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso.

After being discharged from the Army, Matsumi Kanemitsu moved to Baltimore, where he worked at the Bethlehem Steel shipyards and studied masonry and bricklaying. While he had begun creating oil portraits and pen and ink drawings during his service, his years in Baltimore were marked by a concentrated dedication to his artistic practice. During this time, he studied art informally with Karl Metzler and focused his attention on the study of the human body. While his work from the late 1940s and early 1950s retained strong elements of figuration, Kanemitsu often juxtaposed different styles into one work and experimented with painterly abstraction, developing a visual vocabulary entirely his own.

It was also during this period that he met J. Blankfard Martenet, an avid collector of the artist’s drawings who donated his collection to the BMA in 1957. Thanks in part to Martenet’s patronage, Kanemitsu’s first professional successes were achieved in Baltimore. He was featured in regional artist invitationals, winning a prize at the Peale Museum’s 1952 Life in Baltimore Twelfth Annual Painting Show, and receiving his first solo museum exhibition at the BMA in 1954. Matsumi Kanemitsu would later move to New York and then Los Angeles, becoming a prominent member of noted art world circles and taking on prestigious teaching roles. Starting in the mid-1950s, following his time in Baltimore, he fully embraced abstraction in his practice, and it is this that is most readily recognized.

This exhibition is curated by Leslie Cozzi, BMA Curator of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs.

Baltimore Museum of Art

10 Art Museum Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218

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Stanley Whitney @ Baltimore Museum of Art - BMA - Dance With Me Henri

Stanley Whitney: Dance With Me Henri

Baltimore Museum of Art

November 20, 2022 -  April 23, 2023

STANLEY WHITNEY

Dance with me Henri (center window sketch). 2021

The Baltimore Museum of Art: 

Commissioned by the Baltimore Museum of Art, 

supported by Art Fund established with exchange funds 

from  gifts of  Dr. and Mrs. Edgar F. Berman, 

Equitable Bank, N.A., Geoffrey Gates,  Sandra O. Moose, 

National Endowment for the Arts,  Lawrence Rubin, 

Philip M. Stern, and Alan J. Zakon, BMA 2021.189

© Stanley Whitney

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents a focus exhibition of works by acclaimed artist STANLEY WHITNEY that highlights his career-long engagement with the work of Henri Matisse and draws parallels between the two artists’ visionary use of color and line. The exhibition follows Whitney’s celebrated commission of three stained-glass windows for the BMA’s Ruth R. Marder Center for Matisse Studies, which debuted with the Center’s opening in December 2021. Never-before-seen sketches and studies for the windows are presented alongside a selection of Matisse’s prints from the 1930s and 1940s chosen by Stanley Whitney. 

Stanley Whitney has often cited historic European painting as a source of inspiration, including the work of Matisse and in particular Matisse’s glass windows for the Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence in Southern France. Stanley Whitney’s stained-glass windows for the BMA marked the artist’s first museum commission and his first time working in stained glass, translating his interest in expressions of color in a medium naturally suited to it. His process of articulating stacks of color and experimenting with opacity and transparency provided the ideal method to translate the traditional aspects of stained glass into new contemporary possibilities.

The exhibition, presented in the Jay McKean Fisher Gallery adjacent to the stained-glass windows, features three of the watercolor and graphite sketches for the commission; one earlier drawing made in explicit homage to Henri Matisse; and five monotypes in watercolor and crayon. These works on paper reveal Whitney’s attention to color and light, as well as organic line and a sense of play that resonates with Matisse’s legacy. They are paired with seven prints by Henri Matisse that Stanley Whitney selected from the BMA’s extensive holdings. Rare lithographs from the 1930s depict the movement of an acrobatic dancer that highlight Matisse’s interest in line, balance, and poise. Color stencil prints (pochoirs) from Matisse’s groundbreaking book Jazz (1947) capture his explorations of pure color and improvisation that laid the foundations for his work in glass. This work dovetails with Stanley Whitney’s own engagement with jazz, which has served as a critical influence since the 1960s.

“Dance With Me Henri is grounded in Stanley Whitney’s deep love for Matisse,” said curator Katy Siegel. “The installation contextualizes Whitney’s remarkable stained-glass windows and highlights the rich layers of connection between the artists’ works and interests. Through Stanley’s eyes, we see Matisse’s saturated color and organic line as utterly contemporary—he brings French modern art into dialogue with a world that includes jazz, architecture, mid-century NYC painting, and the quilts of Gee’s Bend.”

Stanley Whitney: Dance With Me Henri is curated by Katy Rothkopf, The Anne and Ben Cone Memorial Director of The Ruth R. Marder Center for Matisse Studies and Senior Curator of European Painting and Sculpture, and Katy Siegel, former BMA Senior Research & Programming Curator and Thaw Chair of Modern Art at Stony Brook University.

STANLEY WHITNEY

Stanley Whitney has been exploring the formal possibilities of color within ever-shifting grids of multi-hued blocks and all-over fields of gestural marks and passages since the mid-1970s. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, TX, USA (2017) and Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY (2015). He has been featured in many prominent group shows, including Inherent Structure, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH (2018); Documenta 14 in Athens, Greece and Kassel, Germany (2017); Nero su Bianco at the American Academy in Rome, Italy (2015); and Utopia Station at the 50th Venice Biennale (2003), among others. Whitney has been awarded the Robert De Niro Sr. Prize in Painting (2011), the American Academy of Arts and Letters Art Award (2010), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (1996). His work is in a range of public collections, including the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, KS; Philadelphia Museum of Art, PA; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY; and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY. He holds a BFA from Kansas City Art Institute as well as an MFA from Yale University and is currently Professor emeritus of painting and drawing at Tyler School of Art, Temple University. Whitney was born in Philadelphia in 1946 and lives and works in New York City and Parma, Italy. Stanley Whitney: The Italian Paintings, a collateral event to the 59th Venice Biennial, is currently on view at the Palazzo Tiepolo Passi, Venice, through November 27, 2022. A major retrospective surveying his career will be presented in 2024 at the Buffalo AKG Art Museum, NY and will be traveling to the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis.

MATISSE COLLECTION

The Matisse collection at the BMA was first established in the early 20th century through the vision and philanthropy of sisters Claribel and Etta Cone, whose internationally renowned collection was bequeathed to the museum in 1949 and is the centerpiece of the BMA’s expansive holdings. Among the highlights of the Cone Collection are more than 600 works by Matisse, including paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints, and illustrated books. To this incredible group of objects, the BMA has added hundreds of works by the artist, amassing the world’s largest and most comprehensive collection of Henri Matisse works in a public museum. This includes gifts from members of the Matisse family, such as a selection of works from the collection of the artist’s daughter Marguerite Duthuit, and a major donation of prints by The Pierre and Tana Matisse Foundation in New York. In December 2021, the BMA opened The Ruth R. Marder Center for Matisse Studies, an approximately 2,500-square-foot space on the first floor of the museum dedicated to the study of Henri Matisse. The establishment of the center fulfilled the BMA’s long-term strategic goal to increase research and presentation opportunities for the museum’s incomparable collection of works by the artist.

BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART  - BMA

10 Art Museum Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218

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Generations: A History of Black Abstract Art @ Baltimore Museum of Art

Generations: A History of Black Abstract Art
Baltimore Museum of Art
September 29, 2019 - January 19, 2020

The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents Generations: A History of Black Abstract Art, an exhibition that captures the significant contributions that black artists have made to the development of abstraction from the 1940s to the present. Generations explores the multifaceted power of abstract art as experimental practice, personal exploration, and profound political choice for decades of black artists. The exhibition features nearly 80 paintings, sculptures, and mixed-media installations by such notable artists as Kevin Beasley, Mark Bradford, Jennie C. Jones, Norman Lewis, Lorna Simpson, Alma W. Thomas, and Sam Gilliam. Generations is curated by Christopher Bedford, BMA Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director, and Katy Siegel, BMA Senior Research & Programming Curator and Thaw Chair of Modern Art at Stony Brook University. The exhibition is co-organized by the BMA and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

Drawing on the extensive collection of Pamela J. Joyner and Alfred J. Giuffrida, which is recognized for its unparalleled holdings of works by historic and contemporary black artists, Generations builds on the previously touring Solidary & Solitary exhibition, doubling the show’s scale and scope in the BMA’s expansive galleries with new works from The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection, as well as select objects from the museum’s contemporary collection. The exhibition highlights unexpected resonances and important distinctions between artists, across time and geographic contexts. In addition to solo presentations of work by Norman Lewis, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, and Charles Gaines, Generations provides visitors with in-depth explorations of the work of Alma W. Thomas and Jack Whitten, as well as a broader selection of “duets” that juxtapose works between such artists as Gary Simmons and Lorna Simpson, Melvin Edwards and Leonardo Drew, and Kevin Beasley and Shinique Smith. These pairings are supported by expanded thematic groupings that emphasize the origins and futures of the genre, featuring landmark work by Frank Bowling, Al Loving, Julie Mehretu, Joe Overstreet, and Virginia Jaramillo.

“We find ourselves today in an important moment of cultural reckoning—one in which it is imperative for institutions like the BMA to re-examine the histories of art and to tell a truer and more multidimensional story. In working with the visionary Joyner/Giuffrida Collection, as well as the BMA’s own growing collection, we have an extraordinary opportunity to expand perceptions of what contemporary art was and can be, and celebrate the spectrum and brilliance of artists who have redefined and given depth to abstract art into the present day,” said Siegel. “With this expanded version of the exhibition, we are excited to dive deeper into the material dialogues within and across the work of the featured artists, introducing new audiences to their visions and practices.”

The opening of Generations follows the BMA’s re-conceptualization of its contemporary galleries, in a presentation titled Every Day: Selections from the Collection. The reinstallation highlights major works (and several new acquisitions) by such visionary artists as Howardena Pindell, David Hammons, Kara Walker, Nari Ward, and Jack Whitten, locating black artistic achievement at the center of a thematic overview of modern and contemporary art. This initiative underscores the BMA’s commitment to collecting and presenting the work of artists that have typically been underrepresented in major institutions and exhibitions.

“The presentation of Generations is part of a broader vision to reshape the idea of the museum—who it belongs to and whom it represents. This effort occurs across our special exhibitions, collecting, and public programs. In this way, we can recognize historical shortcomings, and provide our audiences with a richer, more vibrant, and dynamic picture of art—one that speaks to different communities, perspectives, and realities,” said Christopher Bedford, BMA Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director. “We are very much looking forward to our upcoming exhibitions and to the important conversations they may spur.”

The companion publication, Four Generations: The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection of Abstract Art, is also being expanded and reprinted by Gregory R. Miller & Co. It is edited by Courtney J. Martin, Director of the Yale Center for British Art, and features new research and writing from curators at some of the world’s leading institutions.

Generations: A History of Black Abstract Art is presented by The Helis Foundation and organized by The Baltimore Museum of Art and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art. Contributing sponsorship is provided by The Lambent Foundation and The Holt Family Foundation. The presentation in Baltimore is generously sponsored by The Alvin and Fanny B. Thalheimer Exhibition Endowment Fund, Ford Foundation, Bank of America, and CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield.

BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART
10 Art Museum Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218
www.artbma.org

The Baltimore Museum of Art: New architectural master plan for the next 20 years

The Baltimore Museum of Art today unveiled an ambitious new master plan that charts the Museum’s architectural future for the next 20 years.

“The Baltimore Museum of Art is one of the greatest civic spaces in Baltimore,“ said BMA Director Doreen Bolger. “The long-term vision put forth in this master plan will help us enhance the Museum’s visibility as a cultural asset for the region and make it a must-see destination for the community and cultural tourists.”

Designed by renowned neoclassical architect John Russell Pope in 1929, the BMA has grown to encompass several additional galleries for the Museum’s world-class collections, a three-acre sculpture garden, a visitor entrance with an auditorium and restaurant, large special exhibition galleries, and most recently the West Wing for Contemporary Art, which was completed in 1994. The total footprint of the Museum is approximately 200,000 square feet.

The new architectural master plan designed by Baltimore-based Ayers/Saint/Gross Architects + Planners refers back to Pope’s original plan for the BMA by integrating the spaces throughout building, and also builds on the Museum’s mission, vision, and goals. Expansion and renovation opportunities include reopening the grand historic entrance, connecting the galleries with a glass-roof atrium, and reinstalling the collections in new gallery spaces—projects that will create more memorable art experiences for visitors and establish a stronger connection between the BMA and the surrounding community.

The plan also addresses the desire for more visitor amenities, such as dedicated parking, which will be available in a new underground garage at The Johns Hopkins University in 2007. A new North Entrance would create a direct connection to the BMA from the JHU garage, and also provide space for new study centers, classrooms, and an expanded library, providing students and scholars with first-hand opportunities to research the Museum’s remarkable collection.

The BMA Board of Trustees will review project phasing opportunities in the fall. The Museum anticipates having some of these changes in place by the 100th anniversary in 2014.

The Baltimore Museum of Art

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Kerry James Marshall, Baltimore Museum of Art - One True Thing, Meditations on Black Aesthetics

Kerry James Marshall: One True Thing, Meditations on Black Aesthetics
Baltimore Museum of Art
June 20 - September 5, 2004

The Baltimore Museum of Art presents a major exhibition of new work by nationally acclaimed artist Kerry James Marshall. Kerry James Marshall: One True Thing, Meditations on Black Aesthetics examines black history, identity, and cultural tradition through more than 40 works, including paintings, sculpture, photography, installation, and video. 

A painter, photographer, printmaker, and installation artist, Kerry James Marshall’s remarkable talent has earned him a coveted MacArthur Fellow “genius” award. Best known for large-scale paintings that reflect his engagement with social history, the civil rights movement, and his experiences as an African American, Marshall is represented in more than 30 public collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Whitney Museum of American Art, San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art, and The Baltimore Museum of Art.

“We are delighted to bring this highly regarded artist to Baltimore,” said BMA Director Doreen Bolger. “Kerry James Marshall is an important voice in the African-American community, and these are some of his most powerful works to date.”

Kerry James Marshall: One True Thing, Meditations on Black Aesthetics represents a new direction in Marshall’s work in which he opens a dialogue on the issue of black aesthetics, the practice of being an artist, the question of integration versus assimilation, and notions of race.

“You can’t be born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1955, and grow up in South Central [Los Angeles] near the Black Panthers headquarters, and not feel like you’ve got some kind of social responsibility,” said Kerry James Marshall. “You can’t move to Watts in 1963 and not speak about it. That determined a lot of where my work was going to go.”

The term black aesthetics first emerged within the 1960s civil rights and Black Power movements as a way to raise awareness for black rights, foster black cultural pride, and develop strategies for African Americans to participate more actively in the mainstream of U.S. society. Throughout this exhibition, Kerry James Marshall has drawn upon the dense and unique layering of language, music, and art characteristic of black expression to infuse Western art-historical styles with the political and social realities of the African-American experience.

Examples of works in the exhibition include:

- Memento #5, a glittery 9- by 13-foot canvas commemorating heroes of the civil rights movement Martin Luther King Jr., John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Robert Kennedy.

- 7 am Sunday Morning, a monumental 10- by 18-foot painting depicting a street scene on the South Side of Chicago interrupted by the prismatic glare of the sun.

- Garden Party, a four-minute DVD and corresponding painting that reinterprets Impressionist works like Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party with African Americans, Asians, and Hispanics enjoying a backyard gathering.

- The Ladder of Success, an installation of colorful Plexiglass boxes each listing a traditional western virtue—including honesty and punctuality—and principles of the African-American celebration of Kwanzaa, such as creativity and faith.

- Africa Restored, a three-part work that presents the continent as a vast sculpture adorned with medallions that pay homage to Africa as a source of creative inspiration.

- Dailies, a continuation of the artist’s RYTHM MASTR comic series that pits an urban superhero against the Chicago Housing Authority using a combination of futuristic and traditional African accoutrements.

Kerry James Marshall was born in 1955 in Birmingham, Alabama, and raised in Los Angeles. He lives in Chicago where he has been a professor since 1993 at the School of Art and Design and the University of Illinois, Chicago. He received his BFA from the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles in 1978 and an honorary doctorate in 1999. In 1997 Marshall was awarded the prestigious John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. Kerry James Marshall's work has been included in such group exhibitions as the 2003 Venice Biennale; the 1999/2000 Carnegie International; the 1997 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York; and documenta X in Kassel, Germany, in 1997. In 1998, Marshall's work was the subject of a major exhibition organized by the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago that traveled to such venues as the Brooklyn Museum of Art in New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Institute for Contemporary Art in Boston. He was an artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1985. He recently completed a seven-week residency at The University of Texas at Austin.

In addition to his painting career, Kerry James Marshall has been the production designer for the films Daughters of the Dust and Praise House directed by Julie Dash, Sankofa directed by Haile Gerima, and Hendrix Project directed by Arthur Jafa. He is married to the actress Cheryl Lynn Bruce.

Kerry James Marshall will also curate an exhibition at Artscape, Baltimore’s premier arts festival. Kerry James Marshall will select six Baltimore-area artists from open submissions, and he will invite six artists from his hometown of Chicago to participate in Baltimore/Chicago Show, on display June 20–July 31 at the Decker Gallery in the Station Building at the Maryland Institute College of Art. The Artscape festival runs July 16-July 18.

Kerry James Marshall: One True Thing, Meditations on Black Aesthetics was organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and curated by Elizabeth Smith, James W. Alsdorf Chief Curator, with Tricia Van Eck, Curatorial Coordinator. Major support for the exhibition is provided by the Harris Family Foundation in honor of Bette and Neison Harris. Additional support is provided by The Joyce Foundation, The Rockefeller Foundation, Peter Norton Family Foundation, The Boeing Company, and Loop Capital Markets.

In Baltimore, the exhibition is curated by Chris Gilbert, BMA Curator of Contemporary Art.

A 104-page full-color catalogue accompanies the exhibition. “Kerry James Marshall: One True Thing, Meditations on Black Aesthetics” is available.

The exhibition originated at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and traveled to the Miami Art Museum before coming to the BMA. It will go on to the Studio Museum in Harlem (October 13, 2004-January 9, 2005) and the Birmingham Museum of Art in Alabama (February 3-April 24, 2005).

BALTIMORE MUSEUM OF ART
10 Art Museum Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218
www.artbma.org

Updated 13.07.2019