The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA), now (through July 3) presents a 35-year retrospective of work by painter Kerry James Marshall. From his seminal Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self (1980) to his most recent explorations of African American history, Marshall’s first major retrospective in the United States contains nearly 80 paintings—all of which depict Black subjects, presented with utter equality and humanity, going about their daily business. The exhibition is co-organized by MOCA, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art under the leadership of MOCA Chief Curator Helen Molesworth.

The exhibition unfolds in chronological order, charting our nation’s evolving ideas and attitudes towards race and its role in the history of the United States. Beginning with Marshall’s exploration of Ralph Ellison’s classic novel Invisible Man, which explores the lack of African Americans in the culture at large, the exhibition continues on to a suite of paintings dedicated to the exploration of Black love and portraits of members of the Cato’s Rebellion; it culminates in paintings made during the Obama presidency, including a stunning set of portraits of Black artists at work in their studios.

A deeply accomplished painter of ravishing works, Marshall has a threefold strategy. First, he decided as a young artist to paint only Black subjects, and he continues to do so in an unapologetic ebony black that occupies the paintings with a sense of authority and belonging. Second, Marshall works to make a wide variety of images featuring Black subjects—exquisite portraits, lush landscapes, everyday domestic interiors, and depictions of historical events—infiltrating all of the major categories of Western painting in which they have historically been absent. Third, Marshall concentrates on painterly mastery as a fundamental strategy: by mastering the art of representational and figurative painting during a period when it wasn’t in vogue, Marshall is able to produce a body of work that bestows beauty and dignity where it has long been denied.

An accompanying catalogue chronicles Marshall’s career and includes sumptuous color plates of all of the works in the exhibition. The most comprehensive book on the artist to date, it collects all of Marshall’s published writings for the first time and presents them alongside contributions by Molesworth, MOCA Assistant Curator Lanka Tattersall, and others.

Kerry James Marshall (b. 1955, Birmingham, Alabama) grew up in Watts, Los Angeles, and is a 1978 graduate of the Otis College of Art and Design. After being an artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem in 1986, he moved to Chicago, where he continues to live and work today. Marshall is the recipient of several awards, grants, and fellowships including the MacArthur genius grant in 1997 and an honorary doctorate from Otis College of Art and Design in 1999. In 2013 he was named to President Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities. Marshall has exhibited widely, both nationally and internationally. Kerry James Marshall: In the Tower was most recently on view at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (2013). Other recent solo exhibitions include Kerry James Marshall: Painting and Other Stuff, organized by the Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen, Antwerp, Belgium, traveling to the Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Denmark; the Antoni Tapies Foundation, Barcelona; and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (2014); and exhibitions at Secession, Vienna (2012); the Wexner Center for the Arts (2008); Camden Arts Centre (2005); MCA Chicago (2003); and the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago (1998).

Marshall has completed murals and public projects in Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia, and has work in dozens of public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Birmingham Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; and the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Kerry James Marshall: Mastry is organized by The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

The exhibition was co-curated by Helen Molesworth, Chief Curator, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Dieter Roelstraete, Guest Curator for the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; and Ian Alteveer, Associate Curator, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.