The Lost Boys (A.K.A. Untitled)

1993

American, born 1955

Marshall reveals: "I paint things I care about. It would have been easy to represent these places (and situations) as zones of hopelessness and despair, but I know they're more complex than that."

"Lost boys" refers to the idyllic Neverland where Peter Pan led a gang of orphans who never had to grow up. In this painting, lost boys of another sort are commemorated by Kerry James Marshall-those young black men who have died as a result of a homicide. According to the Center for Disease Control, the leading cause of death for fifteen- to thirty-four-year-old black males is homicide by firearm. Responding to this situation, Marshall paints memorial icons that present the youths in the image of saints, with their dates in the foreground and stylized flowers in the background.

Collage of acrylic on paper

28 x 30 in. (71.12 x 76.2 cm)

Gift of the Collectors' Forum

97.32

Not currently on view

Media

For SAM's My Favorite Things series in 2018, KEXP DJ Riz Rollins discusses Kerry James Marshall's 1993 painting The Lost Boys (A.K.A. Untitled).

Resources

Exhibition HistorySeattle, Washington, Greg Kucera Gallery, Civil Progress: Life in Black America, Feb. 6 - Mar. 30, 1997.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Five Installations on the Fourth Floor: Unpretty Pictures, 1997.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Documents International: Reflections in the Mirror: A World of Identity, Apr. 23, 1998 - June 20, 1999.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, First Person Singular, May 31, 2001 - Mar. 17, 2002.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Africa in America, Dec. 18, 2004 - Jan. 1, 2006.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Black Art, Mar. 25, 2008 - Nov. 9, 2008.

Seattle, Washington, Seattle Art Museum, Reverberations: Contemporary Art and Modern Classics, Dec. 22, 2022 - ongoing [on view beginning June 14, 2023].

Seattle Art Museum respectfully acknowledges that we are on Indigenous land, the traditional territories of the Coast Salish people. We honor our ongoing connection to these communities past, present, and future.

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