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SAM'S collection

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

Date1993
Label TextMarshall 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.
Object number97.32
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].
Credit LineGift of the Collectors' Forum
Dimensions28 x 30 in. (71.12 x 76.2 cm)
MediumCollage of acrylic on paper