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Kerry James Marshall

American painter and professor (born 1955)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ832432 ↗
Source-derived summary

Kerry James Marshall (born October 17, 1955) is an American artist and professor, known for his paintings of Black figures. He previously taught painting at the School of Art and Design at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In 2017, Marshall was included on the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world. He was born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama, and moved in childhood to South Central Los Angeles. He has spent much of his career in Chicago, Illinois.

A retrospective exhibition of his work, Kerry James Marshall: Mastry, was assembled by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago in 2016.

Early life and education

Marshall was born October 17, 1955, in Birmingham, Alabama, United States. He was raised in Birmingham and later moved to Los Angeles, California, as part of the Great Migration. He is the son of a postal worker and a homemaker. His father's hobby was buying broken watches that he would inexpensively acquire in pawnshops and learn how to fix them with the help of books, before reselling the watches.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Kerry James Marshall” as american painter and professor (born 1955). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Kerry, James and Marshall.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1955, 2017, 2016—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1955-10-17. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Kerry, James and Marshall providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Kerry James Marshall”, the useful work is to connect “american painter and professor (born 1955)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q832432. VIAF identifies the subject as 96542899. The Library of Congress control number is n00000342. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1955, 2017 and 2016.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

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  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Kerry James Marshall”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Kerry James Marshall primary sources, Kerry James Marshall archive and Kerry research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Kerry James Marshall”?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Kerry James Marshall” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.