Malik Gaines

Frontiers

A Portrait of a Young Gentleman, Kehinde Wiley; The Blue Boy, Thomas Gainsborough
Revising a Masterpiece
Posted on Nov. 15, 2021

With a new painting that responds to Thomas Gainsborough’s The Blue Boy, Kehinde Wiley again revises a “masterpiece,” adding Black youth to the repertoire of English grand manner portraiture, redirecting the genre’s aggrandizing powers, and challenging its exclusivity.