At Phillips' 20th Century & Contemporary Art Evening Sale on March 7 in London, Christian Martyr Tarcisius, Kehinde Wiley's largest painting ever auctioned (measuring 7x15 feet) set a new record for the Nigerian-American contemporary artist. It sold for £660,400 (about $846,000), tripling its estimate of £200,000-300,000. Since 2021, the record price for Wiley was $649,200 for The Virgin Martyr St. Cecilia, sold at Sotheby's New York.
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Christian Martyr Tarcisius (as well as The Virgin Martyr St. Cecilia) was part of Wiley's large-scale DOWN series (2007-2009), which first opened on November 1, 2008, at Deitch Projects gallery in Soho, New York. The DOWN series was Wiley's portrayal of fallen figures in art history, including Jesus Christ, Morpheus of Greek mythology, St. Cecilia, Tarcisius, and Civil War soldiers, with young Black men as subjects.
Wiley's oeuvre has focused on reimagining the Western canon of art history with the Black man and woman at the center. He combines the poses and subjects of Old Master and historical portraits with influences of street art and colorful textiles. The textile work in the background of Christian Martyr Tarcisius is a floral motif based on a cotton textile manufactured in Russia during the 20th century, and the man's jacket references Ghanian textiles.
Related: 14 Black Artists Who Changed Art History
The story of the 3rd century Christian martyr Tarcisius is found in a poem written by Pope Damascus in the 4th century. Tarcisius was a young boy tasked with bringing the Eucharist to prisoners in Rome. A mob pressed him to reveal the Blessed Sacrament he was carrying and stoned him to death when he refused. At this time, Rome was under the rule of emperor Valerian, who persecuted and executed Christians. The best-known depiction of Tarcisius is a marble sculpture by French sculptor Alexandre Falguière (1831-1900), with the original in the Musée d'Orsay and a revised copy at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Wiley's painted depiction is clearly based off of Falguière's sculpture with both bodies configured in the same way, but Wiley puts his martyr directly in the 21st century with contemporary dress and opened eyes.
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The Phillips' 20th Century & Contemporary Art Sale achieved £13.7 million in total (about $17.4 million) and was led by Andy Warhol's Portrait of Princess Diana, which sold for £2.4 million (about $3 million). Olivia Thornton, Phillips’ Head of 20th Century & Contemporary Art, Europe, said, "We are proud of this result, falling comfortably within estimate, and setting world auction records for Kehinde Wiley and Jesse Mockrin. Andy Warhol’s Portrait of Princess Diana commanded the spotlight, selling after a four-minute bidding war for the highest price achieved for a Princess Diana work by the artist."
Related: Warhol's Diana: A Timeless Icon at Auction
Kehinde Wiley is best known for painting President Obama's official portrait for the National Portrait Gallery in 2018, the first Black artist to paint an official presidential portrait. Wiley has used the DOWN series to inspire his latest body of work, titled An Archaeology of Silence, which also explores fallen figures, death, and sacrifice in art history. The showcase was first exhibited at the Fine Arts Museum, San Francisco in March 2023 and is currently being shown at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston until June 2024. It will travel next to the Pérez Art Museum in Miami from July 2024 to January 2025 and then the Minneapolis Institute of Art from February to June 2025.
