Kehinde Wiley Biography

Kehinde Wiley is a Nigerian-American painter who was born in Los Angeles, California, United States. He is known best for his naturalistic portraits of African American men in heroic poses. Wiley’s early work includes Photo-Realistic paintings of men, whom he had met on the streets in Harlem, set against a floral background.

In all of his work, Wiley combines a wide range of references from classical painting as well as pop culture. He developed an early interest in portraiture and frescos, particularly the work of Venetian painters such as Titian and Giambattista Tiepolo draws inspiration from French Rococo painting, Islamic architecture, African textile design, contemporary fashion as well as urban hip hop.

His painting Napoleon Leading the Army Over the Alps in 2005, for example, imitates the well-known portrait of Napoleon Bonaparte by Jacques-Louis David. Wiley substitutes the figure of Napoleon with an anonymous African American model and sets him against a Rococo-style background.

Over the course of his career, the size of Wiley’s canvases has expanded, and he started depicting his subjects, young black models or music icons, in heroic defeat as well as triumph. In the year 2007, Wiley started his ongoing series titled The World Stage with portraits of black men that imitated Maoist propaganda posters.

He has continued to travel through Africa, Brazil, India as well as Sri Lanka, and paint portraits that incorporate the cultural imagery associated with these places. Wiley’s work has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Brooklyn Museum of Art as well as the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. He resides and works in Beijing, Dakar, and New York.

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10 Facts About Kehinde Wiley

1. Name: Kehinde Wiley
2. Age: 45 years
3. Birthday: 28th February
4. Height: Under review
5. Weight: Under review
6. Nationality: American
7. Marital Status: Not known
8. Occupation: Painter
9. Known for: hHis naturalistic portraits of African American men in heroic poses.
10. Net Worth: $1 to $15 million dollars

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Kehinde Wiley Age

Wiley is 45 years old as of 2022, he was born on 28 February 1977 in Los Angeles, California. He celebrates his birthday on February 28  every year and his birth sign is Pisces.

Kehinde Wiley Height

Wiley stands at an average height. He appears to be quite tall in stature if his photos, relative to his surroundings, are anything to go by. However, details regarding his actual height and other body measurements are currently not publicly available. We will update this section when the information is available.

Kehinde Wiley Education

Wiley was a child, his mother supported his interest in art and enrolled him in after-school art classes. At the age of 11, he spent a short time at an art school in Russia. He continued with other classes in the US.  Wiley earned his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1999 and his MFA from Yale University, School of Art in 2001. Wiley became an artist-in-residence at the Studio Museum in Harlem.

Kehinde Wiley Family

Wiley was born to his father, Isaiah D. Obot, Yoruba, from Nigeria, and his mother, Freddie Mae Wiley, African American. He was born and raised in Los Angeles, California along with his twin brother. When Wiley was a child, his mother wanted him and his brother to stay out of the streets and so she supported their interest in art and enrolled them in after-school art classes.

When Wiley was 11 years old and his brother was selected with 48 other kids to spend a short time at a conservatory of art in Russia, just outside St. Petersburg. There Wiley developed his passion for portraiture. Wiley noted that his brother was better at portraiture than he was and this created a competitive sense between them. The siblings would compete to see who could recreate the most realistic images.

The twins were raised by their mother; once their father, who had come to the US as a scholarship student, finished his studies, he went back to Nigeria, leaving Freddie to raise the couple’s six children. Wiley has said that his family survived on welfare checks as well as the limited income earned by his mother’s ‘thrift store’ – which consisted of a patch of sidewalk outside their home. Wiley traveled to Nigeria when he was 20 years old to meet his father and explore his family roots there.

Kehinde Wiley Wife

Wiley has not gone public with his relationship, it is not publicly known whether he is married or in a relationship. He acknowledges that he identifies as a gay man. In reference to his sexuality, Wiley has said “my sexuality is not black and white.

I am a gay man who has drifted. I am not bi. I’ve had perfectly pleasant romances with women, but they weren’t sustainable. My passion wasn’t there. I would always be looking at guys.”He created Black Rock Senegal in Yoff, an artist residence designed by Senegalese architect Abib Djenne between 2014 and 2018.

Kehinde Wiley Net Worth

Wiley has an estimated net worth of $1.5 million dollars as of 2021. This includes his assets, money, and income. His primary source of income is his career as a Television Personality. Through his various sources of income, Wiley has been able to accumulate good fortune but prefers to lead a modest lifestyle.

Kehinde Wiley Measurements and Facts

Here are some interesting facts and body measurements you should know about Kehinde Wiley.

Kehinde Wiley Wiki

• Full Names: Kehinde Wiley
• Popular As: Naturalistic portraits of African American men in heroic poses
• Gender: Male
• Occupation / Profession: Painter
• Nationality: Nigerian-American
• Race / Ethnicity: Black
• Religion: To be updated
• Sexual Orientation: Gay

Kehinde Wiley Birthday

• Age / How Old?: 45 years old as of 2022
• Zodiac Sign: Pisces
• Date of Birth: 28 February 1977
• Place of Birth: Los Angeles, California.
• Birthday: February 28

Kehinde Wiley Body Measurements

• Body Measurements: To be updated
• Height / How Tall?: Average
• Weight: Moderate
• Eye Color: To be updated
• Hair Color: To be updated
• Shoe Size: To be updated

Kehinde Wiley Family and Relationship

• Father (Dad): Isaiah D. Obot, Yoruba
• Mother: Freddie Mae Wiley
• Siblings (Brothers and Sisters): Taiwo Wiley
• Marital Status: To be updated
• Wife/Spouse: Not Applicable
• Dating / Girlfriend: Not Applicable
• Children:  Sons (Not known) Daughter(s) (Not known)

Kehinde Wiley Net Worth and Salary

• Net Worth: $1.5 million dollars
• Salary: Under Review
• Source of Income: Painting

Kehinde Wiley House and Cars

• Place of living:
• Cars: Car Brand to be Updated

Kehinde Wiley Barack Obama

Kehinde Wiley was commissioned in 2017 to paint a portrait of President Barack Obama for the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, which has portraits of all the US presidents. The painting was unveiled on February 12, 2018, and depicts Obama sitting in a chair seemingly floating among foliage.

Kehinde Wiley Paintings

In the year 2012, Wiley is known for painting men exhibited work in Beijing including multiple paintings of women. New York Magazine described his variation of the painting of Judith Beheading Holofernes as standing out among the others. It described the painting as showing “a tall, elegant black woman in a long blue dress. On one hand, she holds a knife.

On the other, a cleanly severed brunette female head”. Kehinde Wiley said about his work: “It’s sort of a play on the ‘kill whitey’ thing”. Wiley exhibited a second similar painting, also in 2012. It also features a black woman holding a knife in one hand and a white female severed head in the other hand. The paintings are based on the Biblical story of Judith beheading Holofernes, a story of a Jewish woman beheading a male enemy general. Wiley portrayed Judith as a modern-day black woman and the beheading victim as a white woman.

Kehinde Wiley Art style

Wiley’s portraits of African American men collate modern culture with the influence of Old Masters. Incorporating a range of vernaculars culled from art historical references, Wiley’s work melds a fluid concept of modern culture, ranging from French Rococo to today’s urban landscape.

By collapsing history as well as style into a unique contemporary vision, Wiley interrogates the notion of a master painter, “making it at once critical and complicit.” Vividly colorful and often adorned with ornate gilded frames, Wiley’s large-scale figurative paintings, which are illuminated with a barrage of baroque or rococo decorative patterns, posit young black men, fashioned in urban attire, within the field of power reminiscent of Renaissance artists such as Tiepolo and Titian.

Kehinde Wiley Career

Kehinde Wiley often references Old Masters paintings for the pose of a figure. Wiley’s paintings often blur the boundaries between traditional and contemporary modes of representation. Rendering his figures in a realistic mode—while making references to specific Old Master paintings Wiley creates a fusion of period styles and influences, ranging from French Rococo, Islamic architecture, and West African textile design, to urban hip hop and the “Sea Foam Green” of a Martha Stewart Interiors color swatch.

Kehinde  Wiley depicts his slightly larger-than-life-size figures in a heroic manner, giving them poses that connote power and spiritual awakening. Wiley’s portrayal of masculinity is filtered through these poses of power and spirituality.

His portraits are based on photographs of young men whom Wiley sees on the street. He has painted men from Harlem’s 125th Street, as well as the South Central Los Angeles neighborhood where he was born. Dressed in street clothes, his models were asked to assume poses from the paintings of Renaissance masters, such as Tiziano Vecellio and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Wiley describes his approach as “interrogating the notion of the master painter, at once critical and complicit”.

His figurative paintings “quote historical sources and position young black men within that field of power”. In this manner, his paintings fuse history and style in a unique and contemporary manner. His art has been described as having homoerotic qualities. Wiley has used a sperm motif as symbolic of masculinity and gender. Wiley had a retrospective in 2016 at the Seattle Art Museum. In May 2017, he had an exhibit, Trickster, at the Sean Kelly Gallery, New York City. The exhibit featured 11 paintings depicting contemporary black artists.

Wiley opened a studio in Beijing, China, in 2006 to use several helpers to do brushstrokes for his paintings. Initially, outsourcing work to China had been done to cut costs but by 2012, Wiley told New York magazine that low costs were no longer the reason.

After visiting Richmond, Virginia, Wiley became interested in the Confederate monuments on Monument Avenue and the idea of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy existing within a modern “hipster” town. In response to the monuments, Wiley decided to create Rumors of War, a thirty-foot tall statue of a young, black man modeled on Monument Avenue’s statue of J. E. B. Stuart. Rumors of War will be unveiled in Times Square before being moved to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, a mile away from the J. E. B. Stuart statue which inspired it.

Kehinde Wiley Quotes

• “Portraits are about revealing aspects of an individual.”
• “The beauty of art is that it allows you to slow down, and for a moment, things that once seemed unfamiliar become precious to you.”
• “Art is about changing what we see in our everyday lives and representing it in such a way that it gives us hope.”

• “If you look at the paintings that I love in art history, these are the paintings where great, powerful men are being celebrated on the big walls of museums throughout the world. What feels really strange is not to be able to see a reflection of me in that world.”
• “There’s something really cool about taking oily colored paste and pushing it around with these hairy sticks and making something that looks like you. That’s the magic of painting.”
• “The reality of Barack Obama being the president of the United States – quite possibly the most powerful nation in the world – means that the image of power is completely new for an entire generation of not only black American kids but every population group in this nation.”

• “My style is in the 21st century. If you look at the process, it goes from photography through Photoshop, where certain features are heightened, elements of the photo are diminished. There is no sense of truth when you’re looking at the painting or the photo or that moment when the photo was first taken.”

Frequently Asked Questions About Kehinde Wiley

Who is Kehinde Wiley?

Kehinde Wiley is a  famous painter who was born in Los Angeles, California, United States. He is known best for his naturalistic portraits of African American men in heroic poses.

How old is Kehinde Wiley?

Wiley is an American national born on 28 February 1977 in Los Angeles, California

How tall is Kehinde Wiley?

Wiley stands at an average height, he has not shared his height with the public. His height will be listed once we have it from a credible source.

Is Kehinde Wiley married?

Wiley is openly gay, details about Kehinde’s love life are still under review. We will let you know when he gets in a relationship or when we discover helpful information about his love life.

How much is Kehinde Wiley worth?

Wiley has an approximate net worth of $1.5 million dollars. This amount has been accrued from his leading roles in the entertainment industry.

Where does Kehinde Wiley live?

Wiley is a resident of Beijing, Dakar, and New York, we shall upload pictures of his house as soon as we have them.

Is Kehinde Wiley dead or alive?

Wiley is alive and in good health. There have been no reports of him being sick or having any health-related issues.

Where is Kehinde Wiley Now?

Painter: Wiley’s work has been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Brooklyn Museum of Art, as well as the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. He resides and works in Beijing, Dakar, and New York.

Kehinde Wiley Social Media Contacts

• Instagram
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Youtube
• Tiktok
• Website

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