modern & contemporary art

Better Homes, Better Gardens, Kerry James Marshall

“Emphatically black” is how Kerry James Marshall describes the skin color he used for this couple. He finds the color “amazingly beautiful and powerful”—but at the same time, it makes their facial features hard to see.

The effect is no accident: “The presence of black people was often not wanted and denied in the American mindset,” he says. “What I set out to do was to develop a figure . . . that would represent that condition of invisibility.”

For more information about this artwork, including lesson plans for teachers and their students, visit our Creativity Resource website.

Modern & Contemporary Art