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拍品專文
“From Punch they started to construct the laws around which the black enslaved would always be permanently enslaved. There is no picture of John Punch, but many references to him in the historical narrative, and so I thought we needed to know. We need to be able to put that idea in that moment with somebody, that he was a real person.” Kerry James Marshall
Portrait of John Punch (Angry Black Man 1646) is a striking painting by the man widely regarded as one of the most influential artists of his generation. With this imagined portrait, Kerry James Marshall challenges and reinterprets the Eurocentric, Western and overwhelmingly white art historical canon. Where the Black figure has traditionally been cast to the periphery—or not represented at all— Marshall recenters and reclaims the Black subject as central to art history. In the present work, Marshall’s subject is John Punch, the man historically thought to be the first enslaved person in the English colonies. But as no known images of Punch exist, the artist chooses to interpret his image through a contemporary lens, using a present-day Black figure to emphasize the continued injustice. Thus, Marshall both utilizes and reinvents conventional techniques to “refer back without having to reproduce” — invoking conventional art historical narratives and motifs whilst reimagining the Black subject in roles traditionally denied to them. Marshall asked himself: “How do you address history with a painting that doesn’t look like Giotto or Géricault or Ingres, but without abandoning the knowledge that painters had accumulated over the centuries?” (K.J. Marshall, quoted by C. Tompkins, “The Epic Style of Kerry James Marshall”, The New Yorker, August 9, 2021, online [accessed: 10/18/2025]). Through this radical reimagining, Marshall challenges the racial hierarchies embedded in the canon, asserting a Black presence within spaces where it has been absent or marginalized.
Portrait of John Punch (Angry Black Man 1646) is an exceptional testament to this lifelong mission of his artistic work. Perhaps the most significant genre in the history of Western art, portraiture has long served as the medium with which aristocracy has been legitimized, conveying and solidifying their identities in the annals of history. For example, Dutch Golden Age portraiture served to idealize and immortalize their subjects, often wealthy patrons or civic groups who sought to flaunt and cement their wealth. In austere settings and contemporary dress, Dutch portraiture of the seventeenth century is recognizable for its meticulous detail, dramatic lighting, and focus on realism. In the present work, Marshall hints at his source material with the depiction of a white collar encircling his figure, a prominent feature of Dutch fashion in the seventeenth century often used to demonstrate a person’s wealth and status. The dark background, meticulous realism, and frontal gaze of its subject further solidifies the portrait’s connection to this art historical tradition. After attempting escape in 1640, John Punch was sentenced to slavery for the remainder of his life under criminal law, a much heavier sentence than the two white European man who ran away alongside him. Marshall’s portrait is a striking, complex portrayal that pictures Punch as defiant and resilient in the face of lifelong bondage.
Invoking the “angry black man” stereotype of its title, Marshall simultaneously confronts racial caricatures while subverting them through nuanced, dignified representation. The result, as Lanka Tattesall writes, is a “paradox that is both unsettling and generative.” (L. Tattesall, “Black Lives Matter,” Kerry James Marshall: Mastry, p.59.) Marshall’s representation of Black skin is emblematic of this paradox. Using three black pigments—ivory black, carbon black and Mars black-mixed with cobalt blue, chrome-oxide green, or dioxazine violet—Marshall intends to show that “black is richer than it appears to be, that it is not just darkness but a color” (K.J. Marshall, op. cit.). In an interview, Marshall further explains: “Extreme blackness plus grace equals power. I see the figures as emblematic; I’m reducing complex variations of tone to a rhetorical dimension: blackness. It’s a kind of stereotyping, but my figures are never laughable.” (K.J. Marshall, quoted by I. Alteveer et. al. (eds.), in Kerry James Marshall: Mastry, exh. cat., Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2016, p.59). In Portrait of John Punch (Angry Black Man 1646), Punch’s face is glistening, nearly illuminated, conveying skin’s texture to differentiate the blackness from its background. Marshall’s unique use of acrylic on PVC panel contributes to the vibrancy and smooth finish of its effect, an advancement of the tradition of Northern Europe panel painting that Marshall took an interest in. At once somber and weighty, Punch’s defiant gaze is simultaneously arresting and assertive, creating a powerful portrayal of a marginalized figure with both dignity and depth.
Marshall’s Portrait of John Punch (Angry Black Man 1646) is one of a group of paintings that Marshall executed in the early 2000s depicting significant African-American individuals. In Portrait of Nat Turner with the Head of His Master (2011), Marshall depicts the legendary leader of the deadliest slave rebellion in America’s history. With a similarly defiant gaze, Turner stands holding a bloodied ax, his victim visible in the background—a radical reimagining of historical events, in which Turner was ultimately sentenced to death for his betrayal. Marshall frames Turner as a heroic martyr, a defiant symbol of resistance against oppression. Interestingly, the figure wears a textured red garment that bears resemblance to the clothes on Marshall’s representation of John Punch, invoking a narrative of freedom and resilience even while representing Punch’s tragic moment of bondage. With these, Marshall seeks to “reclaim the image of blackness as an emblem of power,” invoking them with a “sense of grandeur that comes with monumental images.” In this vein, and particularly with John Punch's imagined likeness and the importance placed on the dignity of his clothing, one is inspired to recall the dreamlike fictional portraits of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.
“When I insert a figure into a painting space, I have to consider all of the things that it means and then construct, edit, and revise in order to reach its maximum effect so that blackness becomes a noun, not an adjective.” Kerry James Marshall
Marshall’s investment in portraiture was born out of his encounter with Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man. Ellison’s “description…of condition of invisibility literally changed everything for me,” the artist said. “What I was reading there, the notion of being and not being, the simultaneity of presence and absence, was exactly what I had been trying to get at in my artwork” (K. J. Marshall, quoted by I. Alteveer, “A Different Light,” in I. Alteveer et. al., Kerry James Marshall: Mastry, p.25). Marshall’s 1980 A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self investigated this notion further, presenting a Black figure with a large white smile and gapped teeth, inspired by his earlier work with collage. The work at once confronts racial caricatures, addressing the erasure of Black identity and history while also presenting a haunting image. “Presence has an absolute value in its own right,” Marshall said. “The fact of existence the fact of its being there, the fact of its being available – that by itself has fundamental value.” (K.J Marshall, quoted in an interview with Charles Gaines, Kerry James Marshall, London, 2017, p.35). This undeniable presence comes to life in Marshall’s portraits of artists, executed around the same time as the present work. In these, Marshall responds to the longstanding art historical tradition of making painting about painting, this time centering the Black artist and subtly subverting its trope by rendering the painting in the work as a paint-by-numbers canvas. As in Portrait of John Punch (Angry Black Man 1646), Marshall invokes conventional art-historical motifs while simultaneously challenging them, creating complex, powerful works that meditate on Black identity, cultural memory, and the politics of representation and visibility in art history.
Offered from the collection of Bruce Bailey, one of Canada’s most respected art patrons, Portrait of John Punch (as well as Steven Shearer's Drag II) is being sold to benefit The Bailey Arts Foundation, an organization devoted to advancing the visual arts in Canada and beyond. For decades, Bailey has been a passionate collector and champion of artists, forging close friendships with both Kerry James Marshall and Steven Shearer from the early days of their careers. His foundation continues this spirit of support and engagement, investing significantly in institutions such as the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and creating opportunities for emerging artists through its innovative artist-sponsored gala initiative, in which patrons donate their tables to practicing artists, allowing them to network and connect with leading collectors from across North America. The sale of this work extends Bailey’s lifelong commitment to cultivating a vibrant and inclusive cultural landscape.
Portrait of John Punch (Angry Black Man 1646) is a striking painting by the man widely regarded as one of the most influential artists of his generation. With this imagined portrait, Kerry James Marshall challenges and reinterprets the Eurocentric, Western and overwhelmingly white art historical canon. Where the Black figure has traditionally been cast to the periphery—or not represented at all— Marshall recenters and reclaims the Black subject as central to art history. In the present work, Marshall’s subject is John Punch, the man historically thought to be the first enslaved person in the English colonies. But as no known images of Punch exist, the artist chooses to interpret his image through a contemporary lens, using a present-day Black figure to emphasize the continued injustice. Thus, Marshall both utilizes and reinvents conventional techniques to “refer back without having to reproduce” — invoking conventional art historical narratives and motifs whilst reimagining the Black subject in roles traditionally denied to them. Marshall asked himself: “How do you address history with a painting that doesn’t look like Giotto or Géricault or Ingres, but without abandoning the knowledge that painters had accumulated over the centuries?” (K.J. Marshall, quoted by C. Tompkins, “The Epic Style of Kerry James Marshall”, The New Yorker, August 9, 2021, online [accessed: 10/18/2025]). Through this radical reimagining, Marshall challenges the racial hierarchies embedded in the canon, asserting a Black presence within spaces where it has been absent or marginalized.
Portrait of John Punch (Angry Black Man 1646) is an exceptional testament to this lifelong mission of his artistic work. Perhaps the most significant genre in the history of Western art, portraiture has long served as the medium with which aristocracy has been legitimized, conveying and solidifying their identities in the annals of history. For example, Dutch Golden Age portraiture served to idealize and immortalize their subjects, often wealthy patrons or civic groups who sought to flaunt and cement their wealth. In austere settings and contemporary dress, Dutch portraiture of the seventeenth century is recognizable for its meticulous detail, dramatic lighting, and focus on realism. In the present work, Marshall hints at his source material with the depiction of a white collar encircling his figure, a prominent feature of Dutch fashion in the seventeenth century often used to demonstrate a person’s wealth and status. The dark background, meticulous realism, and frontal gaze of its subject further solidifies the portrait’s connection to this art historical tradition. After attempting escape in 1640, John Punch was sentenced to slavery for the remainder of his life under criminal law, a much heavier sentence than the two white European man who ran away alongside him. Marshall’s portrait is a striking, complex portrayal that pictures Punch as defiant and resilient in the face of lifelong bondage.
Invoking the “angry black man” stereotype of its title, Marshall simultaneously confronts racial caricatures while subverting them through nuanced, dignified representation. The result, as Lanka Tattesall writes, is a “paradox that is both unsettling and generative.” (L. Tattesall, “Black Lives Matter,” Kerry James Marshall: Mastry, p.59.) Marshall’s representation of Black skin is emblematic of this paradox. Using three black pigments—ivory black, carbon black and Mars black-mixed with cobalt blue, chrome-oxide green, or dioxazine violet—Marshall intends to show that “black is richer than it appears to be, that it is not just darkness but a color” (K.J. Marshall, op. cit.). In an interview, Marshall further explains: “Extreme blackness plus grace equals power. I see the figures as emblematic; I’m reducing complex variations of tone to a rhetorical dimension: blackness. It’s a kind of stereotyping, but my figures are never laughable.” (K.J. Marshall, quoted by I. Alteveer et. al. (eds.), in Kerry James Marshall: Mastry, exh. cat., Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, 2016, p.59). In Portrait of John Punch (Angry Black Man 1646), Punch’s face is glistening, nearly illuminated, conveying skin’s texture to differentiate the blackness from its background. Marshall’s unique use of acrylic on PVC panel contributes to the vibrancy and smooth finish of its effect, an advancement of the tradition of Northern Europe panel painting that Marshall took an interest in. At once somber and weighty, Punch’s defiant gaze is simultaneously arresting and assertive, creating a powerful portrayal of a marginalized figure with both dignity and depth.
Marshall’s Portrait of John Punch (Angry Black Man 1646) is one of a group of paintings that Marshall executed in the early 2000s depicting significant African-American individuals. In Portrait of Nat Turner with the Head of His Master (2011), Marshall depicts the legendary leader of the deadliest slave rebellion in America’s history. With a similarly defiant gaze, Turner stands holding a bloodied ax, his victim visible in the background—a radical reimagining of historical events, in which Turner was ultimately sentenced to death for his betrayal. Marshall frames Turner as a heroic martyr, a defiant symbol of resistance against oppression. Interestingly, the figure wears a textured red garment that bears resemblance to the clothes on Marshall’s representation of John Punch, invoking a narrative of freedom and resilience even while representing Punch’s tragic moment of bondage. With these, Marshall seeks to “reclaim the image of blackness as an emblem of power,” invoking them with a “sense of grandeur that comes with monumental images.” In this vein, and particularly with John Punch's imagined likeness and the importance placed on the dignity of his clothing, one is inspired to recall the dreamlike fictional portraits of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.
“When I insert a figure into a painting space, I have to consider all of the things that it means and then construct, edit, and revise in order to reach its maximum effect so that blackness becomes a noun, not an adjective.” Kerry James Marshall
Marshall’s investment in portraiture was born out of his encounter with Ralph Ellison’s novel Invisible Man. Ellison’s “description…of condition of invisibility literally changed everything for me,” the artist said. “What I was reading there, the notion of being and not being, the simultaneity of presence and absence, was exactly what I had been trying to get at in my artwork” (K. J. Marshall, quoted by I. Alteveer, “A Different Light,” in I. Alteveer et. al., Kerry James Marshall: Mastry, p.25). Marshall’s 1980 A Portrait of the Artist as a Shadow of His Former Self investigated this notion further, presenting a Black figure with a large white smile and gapped teeth, inspired by his earlier work with collage. The work at once confronts racial caricatures, addressing the erasure of Black identity and history while also presenting a haunting image. “Presence has an absolute value in its own right,” Marshall said. “The fact of existence the fact of its being there, the fact of its being available – that by itself has fundamental value.” (K.J Marshall, quoted in an interview with Charles Gaines, Kerry James Marshall, London, 2017, p.35). This undeniable presence comes to life in Marshall’s portraits of artists, executed around the same time as the present work. In these, Marshall responds to the longstanding art historical tradition of making painting about painting, this time centering the Black artist and subtly subverting its trope by rendering the painting in the work as a paint-by-numbers canvas. As in Portrait of John Punch (Angry Black Man 1646), Marshall invokes conventional art-historical motifs while simultaneously challenging them, creating complex, powerful works that meditate on Black identity, cultural memory, and the politics of representation and visibility in art history.
Offered from the collection of Bruce Bailey, one of Canada’s most respected art patrons, Portrait of John Punch (as well as Steven Shearer's Drag II) is being sold to benefit The Bailey Arts Foundation, an organization devoted to advancing the visual arts in Canada and beyond. For decades, Bailey has been a passionate collector and champion of artists, forging close friendships with both Kerry James Marshall and Steven Shearer from the early days of their careers. His foundation continues this spirit of support and engagement, investing significantly in institutions such as the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts and creating opportunities for emerging artists through its innovative artist-sponsored gala initiative, in which patrons donate their tables to practicing artists, allowing them to network and connect with leading collectors from across North America. The sale of this work extends Bailey’s lifelong commitment to cultivating a vibrant and inclusive cultural landscape.