Kerry James Marshall’s Royal Academy Exhibition Features New Paintings on African Collaboration in Transatlantic Slave Trade

['Maximilíano Durón', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow', 'Class', 'Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus', 'Display Inline', '.Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Where Img', 'Height Auto Max-Width', 'Vertical-Align Bottom .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Coauthors.Is-Layout-Flow .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar', 'Vertical-Align Middle .Wp-Block-Co-Authors-Plus-Avatar Is .Alignleft .Alignright'] ARTnews.com 2025-09-23 16:40:28

Kerry James Marshall, one of America’s leading painters, is debuting a new set of paintings that look at the involvement of Africans in the transatlantic slave trade as part of his recently opened survey at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. That’s the slave trade too. “It is a history understood in fragments, and accordingly … Marshall composes paintings with disparate images, motifs and textures,” according to the exhibition wall text. Installation view of “Kerry James Marshall: The Histories,” 2025–26, at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, showing, from left, Haul, Outbound, and Cove, 2025. Photo: ©David Parry/ Royal Academy of Arts, London; Art: ©Kerry James Marshall/Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner, LondonIn the latest paintings, Marshall presents “confident Black people acting with agency.