Beschreibung:

Well Kept
2010 signed and dated 'Kaphar 10' on the reverse oil on canvas mounted on panel 213.4 x 137.2 cm. (84 x 54 in.) Painted in 2010.
Kaphar uses a pastoral landscape background, a classical standard of 17th Century and 18th Century grand portraiture, to mimic a trusted and respected ‘time-honoured tradition of painting’ii, before vandalising what we thought to be familiar. The covered figure stands in front of an Arcadian landscape in which a large boulder frames a woodland view; a distinct landscape trope made popular in the 17th Century by the famed portraitist, Sir Antony van Dyck. The leading court painter in Europe at the time, van Dyck espoused a genre of portraits where aristocratic men and women would stand in front of curtains, classical columns, bare rocks and wild landscape, all loaded with symbolic meaning. This motif was popularised among the British aristocracy and was later adopted by significant British portrait painters, including Thomas Gainsborough and Sir Joshua Reynolds The background of Well Kept is almost identical to the classical landscape depicted in van Dyck’s Lady Anne Carey, Later Viscountess Claneboye and Countess of Clanbrassil (ca. 1636) and Lady Frances Cranfield, Lady Buckhurst, later Countess of Dorset (ca. 1637), illustrating Kaphar’s choice of van Dyck as his subject of disruption. Additionally, the women in these paintings represent the aristocratic historical figure whose depictions we see continuously repeated throughout history, and who Kaphar is urging us to look beyond, and consider those whose images have not been recorded or represented in the canon of art history. In Well Kept, as in other paintings from his Classical Disruption series such as Fidelity (2010), Kaphar includes a small canine companion, referencing his dismay that there is more written about dogs in art history than there is about racial, ethnic and minority groups. "The expressionist remaking of the past inspires the viewer to look, decipher, and create new narratives for understanding." —Bridget R. Cooks Collector’s Digest Joining the Gagosian gallery in May of this year, Kaphar’s career continues to rise to new heights. Recently, his profound painting portraying a grieving Black mother was featured on the cover of Time Magazine’s June 2020 issue during the protests on behalf of Black Lives, powerfully depicting the fear Black mothers feel for their children. Kaphar’s work has been featured in numerous major exhibitions, including Redaction at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (2019) and History in the Making at the Seattle Art Museum, Seattle (2009), and he is currently exhibiting From a Tropical Space at Gagosian in New York, which will be on view until 19 Dec 2020. Titus Kaphar, Analogous Colors, 2020. As seen on the front cover of Time magazine, June 15, 2020. i Lindsey Davis, ‘Dismantling History: An Interview with Titus Kaphar’, Art21 Magazine, Nov/Dec 2015 Issue, 2 Dec 2015, online. ii Bridget R. Cooks, Titus Kaphar: Classical Illusion, New York, 2011, p. 5.