The Cincinnati Art Museum’s collection just got bigger by three pieces from one of the most recognizable and acclaimed contemporary artists.
Kehinde Wiley is known for redefining the art of portraiture. Inspired by poses in and conventions of historical European art, Wiley depicts Black and Brown men and women in a classic, glorified, prestigious, heroic and powerful manner. In 2018, Wiley’s portrait of former President Barack Obama joined the National Portrait Gallery’s collection.
Wiley works across the globe in mediums of sculpture and stained glass, but he is widely recognized for his larger-than-life portraits. His grand paintings blur lines between a traditional and contemporary approach while upending typecasts and critical portrayals pertaining to Black and Brown men and women.
“The Two Sisters” is part of a 2012 series of paintings “An Economy of Grace,” in which Wiley portrays female subjects for the first time. Wiley was inspired by French artist Théodore Chassériau’s 1843 double portrait of his sisters that hangs in the Louvre.
The portrait shows two women standing stoic and elegant in delicately textured white dresses. Patterned florals surround and at points overlap the women, who are embracing each other by the arm. A strike of balance is accomplished with an almost mirrored sense of beauty in expression and posture.
Wiley wove fashion design and filmmaking into his creation of “The Two Sisters.” Italian fashion designer Riccardo Tisci and Wiley designed the sisters’ dresses together. The project was documented in a 2014 film, An Economy of Grace, directed by Jeff Dupre and Wiley. Museum visitors can view a trailer for the documentary in the gallery.
“For the past two decades, Wiley has been writing a new chapter of art history by portraying historically underrepresented women and men on a heroic scale and style nurtured in Europe from the 1700s to the 1900s—the cradle of colonialism. His art corrects biased expectations of who should be celebrated in our pantheon of art and culture—both who belongs behind the canvas and in front of it,” the museum’s curator of European paintings, sculpture and drawings, Peter Jonathan Bell, said in a press release. “After introducing this acquisition with a special presentation just off the museum lobby, we look forward to exhibiting The Two Sisters in close dialogue with masterpieces by Gainsborough and Reynolds, where it will breathe new life into our historical collection.”
“The Two Sisters” was a gift from the Ragland family. It is on view in the Conversations Gallery, just off the museum’s main entrance and lobby, alongside two other recent additions to the museum by Wiley, bronze busts of Mame Kéwé Aminata Lŏ and Barthélémy Senghor.
More information: cincinnatiartmuseum.org.
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This article appears in Feb 22 – Mar 7, 2023.
