Great America
1994
Artist, American, born 1955

Great America (1994) by Kerry James Marshall is the Gallery's first painting by this major midcareer artist. A devoted student of the human figure and the history of art, Marshall draws upon the experience of African Americans to create imposing, contemporary history paintings.
Marshall's mature career can be dated to 1980, when, inspired by the opening lines of Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man, he developed his signature motif of a dark, near-silhouetted figure in A Portrait of the Artist as His Former Self. Refusing both negative and positive stereotypes of black people, Marshall's figures of "extreme blackness" operate, he explains, "right on the borderline," forcing the viewer to find nuance and articulation within only apparently black forms. This strategy has been influential for younger artists, including Kara Walker and Glenn Ligon.
Great America is contemporaneous with Marshall's well-known Garden Project (1994–1995), a series of paintings based on housing projects with "gardens" in their names, such as Nickerson Gardens in Watts, where he grew up. In those works, Marshall sought to convey the dignity and complexity of lives set within difficult circumstances. In Great America he re-imagines a boat ride into the haunted tunnel of an amusement park as the Middle Passage of slaves from Africa to the New World. What might in other hands be a work of heavy irony becomes instead a delicate interweaving of the histories of painting and race. The painting, which is stretched directly onto the wall, creates a screen or backdrop onto which viewers project their own associations triggered by the diaphanous yet powerful imagery.
Artwork overview
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Medium
acrylic and collage on canvas
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Credit Line
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Dimensions
overall: 261.62 x 289.56 cm (103 x 114 in.)
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Accession
2011.20.1
More About this Artwork

Video: Conversations with Artists: Kerry James Marshall
In this program recorded on June 26, 2013, exhibition curator James Meyer and Kerry James Marshall discuss the works and themes of his exhibition In the Tower: Kerry James Marshall, on view at the Gallery from June 28 to December 8, 2013.

Video: Conversations with Artists: Kerry James Marshall
On October 27, 2013, Kerry James Marshall discusses his painting Great America (1994), acquired by the National Gallery of Art in 2011 as a gift of the Collectors Committee, and the inspiration for the Gallery’s exhibition In the Tower: Kerry James Marshall, on view June 28 through December 8, 2013.
Artwork history & notes
Provenance
The artist; (Koplin Gallery, Culver City, California); purchased 1994 -1995 by (Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle, WA); purchased April 1997 by Dr. Herbert and Shirley Semler, Portland, OR; [1] (Christie’s, New York, 10 February 2009, no. 15, bought in); purchased 9 May 2011 through (Jack Shainman Gallery, New York) by NGA.
[1] This information kindly provided by Greg Kucera (email dated 13 December 2024, in NGA curatorial file).
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1995
Kerry James Marshall. Works on Paper and Canvas, Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle, WA, 5-29 October 1995, unumbered exhibition checklist.
1997
Civil Progress: Life in Black America, Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle, WA, 6 Februray-30 March 1997, repro.
2013
In the Tower: Kerry James Marshall, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2013, unnumbered brochure, repro.
Bibliography
2013
Meyer, James. "In the Tower: Kerry James Marshall." National Gallery of Art Bulletin 48 (Spring 2013): 32-33, repro.
2024
Haw, Kate, Charles Brock, James Meyer, and Donna Kirk. "The Conversation Series. A Look Behind the Latest Installation." Art for the Nation no. 68 (Spring 2024): 3-6, 12, fig.1, 6.
Wikidata ID
Q20198047