'Art history is a heavy burden to carry on your shoulders and as opposed to running away from that burden, I turn that burden into the subject of my work.' —Kehinde Wiley

Painted in 2014, Ferdinand-Philippe-Louis-Henri, Duc d'Orleans is a striking and majestic portrait by American artist Kehinde Wiley, best known for his photorealist reimaging of everyday Black figures adopting the poses and attitudes struck by the historical subjects of classical European portraiture. Maintaining certain visual cues borrowed from these Old Master paintings, Wiley draws attention to the language of power and dominance that they operate within, subverting these structures and hierarchies by placing the contemporary Black and diasporic body centre stage.

Dressed in contemporary athletic clothing referencing the Senegalese basketball team AS Forces Armées, the subject of Ferdinand-Philippe-Louis-Henri, Duc d'Orleans strikes a confident, self-assured pose. With one hand positioned on his hip, straightened shoulders and head inclined slightly to one side, the model assumes the powerful stance of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres’ portraits of Ferdinand-Philippe, Duc d’Orléans.

Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Ferdinand-Philippe (1810-42) Duke of Orleans in the Park at Saint-Cloud, 1843.

The son of the future King Louis Philippe I, Ferdinand-Philippe was closely involved in the French colonial project and would be a prominent player in the invasion and occupation of Algiers in the 1830s. The careful juxtaposition of contemporary athletic wear and the military uniform of a colonial ruling power sharply highlights the erasure of Black figures and their stories from these historical narratives, and of the role traditionally played by portraiture in visually enforcing these power relations. As the artist has described: ‘So much of these portraits are about fashioning oneself into the image of perfection that ruled the day in the 18th and 19th centuries. […] My paintings at their best take that vocabulary and attempt to transpose that into a form that gives respect not only to the history of painting but also to those people who look and sound like me.’ⁱ

While Ingres’ portraits of Ferdinand-Philippe use lavish interiors or carefully cultivated landscapes to reinforce the visual language of power and dominance, Wiley here adopts a bright and highly decorative repeated thistle motif. At once recalling the patterned furnishings of Arts & Crafts pioneer William Morris and African textiles, Wiley’s ornate background powerfully evokes a vibrant clash of cultures and draws certain comparisons between the historical marginalisation of the decorative arts and that of non-European peoples. Drawing on the visual displays of power, wealth, and privilege codified through a history of portraiture, Wiley instead focusses on these overlooked elements, ensuring that ‘what has been marginalised comes to occupy the very centre of the painting.’ⁱⁱ

Working on a basis of ‘street-casting’, Wiley selects his subjects by sight, showing them pictures of his work and inviting them to collaborate on the project. After selecting Old Master portraits as specific reference points, Wiley poses his subjects for studio photographs, which he then uses as the source image for his lavish and strikingly collaborative portraits. As Wiley has commented, ‘we love looking at ourselves, when we stare at those portraits, sure, we see other people in states of grace, but we also see ourselves imagined. There is implied in this act of looking a type of exchange, a recognition that if someone else can be seen in such a state of esteem, it presupposes a state for our own.’ⁱⁱⁱ

Currently the focus of an important exhibition in London’s National Gallery, examples of Wiley’s work can be found in major institutions worldwide including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, and the Nasher Museum of Art, North Carolina. In 2017 Wiley was commissioned to paint Barack Obama’s presential portrait, which now resides in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C.

Kehinde Wiley discusses the relationship of his work to art historical tradition and the importance of posing today.

ⁱ Kehinde Wiley, quoted in Anne Louise Berman, ‘Oral history interview with Kehinde Wiley’, Washington, 2010, online.
ⁱⁱ Kehinde Wiley, quoted in Natasha Kurchanova, ‘Kehinde Wiley: “I think ideas are just as important as the material practice of painting,”’ Studio International, 27 February 2015, online
ⁱⁱⁱ Kehinde Wiley, ‘The Language of Power: Kehinde Wiley interviewed by Jérôme Sans’, in Kehinde Wiley and Jérôme Sans, Kehinde Wiley: The World Stage: France 1880–1960, (exh. cat.), Galerie Daniel Templon, 2015, p. 12.
- Provenance
  Roberts & Tilton, Los Angeles
  Acquired from the above by the present owner