Kerry James Marshall (b. 1955)

"I've always wanted to be a history painter on a grand scale like Giotto and Gericault but the moment when that kind of painting was really possible seems so distant, especially after Pollock and Polke. Nevertheless, I persist, trying to construct meaningful pictures that solicit identification with, and reflection on Black existential realities" (Kerry James Marshall in a letter to Arthur Jafa in the summer of 1994).