Stoddard Art Lecture: Kerry James Marshall in Print

Named by the Time 100 list as one of the most influential people in the world, painter and printmaker Kerry James Marshall is known for his stunning representations of African American life, centering Black subjects to address the Western art historical canon’s “lack in the image bank”.  

Though best known as a painter, Marshall has throughout his career also produced a vast graphic oeuvre that has been seldom seen and documented. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1955, Marshall spent his youth building his craft in drawing and painting, but also in wood engraving and printing; by his mid-twenties, he recalls, "I could do woodcuts, etchings, aquatints." Most of his prints have been produced not in professional print workshops, but by the artist working alone in his studio. While some have been exhibited alongside his large acrylic paintings in prominent museum collections internationally, many exist only in private collections or the artist’s archive, unknown to the public.  

Art historian Susan Tallman’s catalogue raisonné of Marshall’s graphic work offers the first public account and in-depth study of these important works. Tallman will examine Marshall’s unique oeuvre, highlighting the role of printed images and print processes in his work as a whole. Signed copies of her newly released book will be available for purchase on site by Elm Street Books, and the talk coincides with our gallery exhibition, “Printing Past and Present”, curated by the Center for Contemporary Printmaking.  

Elm Street Books will be on-site selling, "Kerry James Marshall: The Complete Prints: 1976–2022" by Susan Tallman.

The Stoddard Art Lecture Series honors Patricia and Hud Stoddard, both art aficionados, who were longtime friends, users, and advocates for New Canaan Library. The Lecture Series is intended to enrich and broaden the community's understanding and enjoyment of the visual arts in its various forms by providing educational, historical and critical commentary on artists and their works and lives. This Lecture Series also serves as a complement to the Lightburn Gallery, which provides a forum for the exhibition of a wide range of artworks.