Portrait
Kehinde Wiley
Born
28 February 1977Los Angeles, USA
PainterUnited States

Kehinde Wiley

He paints young Black men and women in the poses of European kings – and painted Barack Obama’s official portrait.

Kehinde Wiley grew up in Los Angeles, raised by his mother; his father was from Nigeria. As a child he took art classes and visited museums full of European portraits in which hardly anyone looked like him.

After studying at Yale he developed his signature style: he invites young Black people he meets on the street to pose, and paints them in the poses of famous Old Master portraits, in front of richly decorated patterned backgrounds. His paintings question who has been shown as powerful in art history. Wiley has spoken openly about being gay, and his images of Black men have often been read as exploring masculinity and desire.

In 2018 his portrait of President Barack Obama, set against a wall of leaves and flowers, was unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery. His bronze equestrian statue “Rumors of War” (2019) responded to the Confederate monuments in Richmond, Virginia. In Dakar, Senegal, he founded the artists’ residency Black Rock.

In 2024 an artist from Ghana accused Wiley of sexual assault; Wiley denied the allegations.

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