In the Saint Louis Art Museum’s Gallery 238, two life-size paintings hang side-by-side. On the left is an official portrait of Charles I, pictured striking a powerful pose and surrounded by an array of royal accoutrements. On the right is a painting of St. Louis resident Ashley Cooper. Her equally powerful stance mimics Charles’, but she wears modern, casual clothing and stands amidst a three-dimensional floral wallpaper.
Both works, which are now on display and free to view, are pieces in SLAM’s permanent collection. The museum acquired the original likeness of the 17th-century English king in 1916. Titled “Charles I,” the piece was painted in 1633 by prominent artist Daniel Mytens I. Nearly 400 years later, American painter Kehinde Wiley used Mytens’ work as the inspiration for his image of Cooper. Wiley’s portrait, also titled “Charles I,” was originally displayed alongside 10 other paintings in the 2018 SLAM exhibition Kehinde Wiley: St. Louis. According to SLAM associate curator of modern and contemporary art Hannah Klemm, Wiley was invited to use objects in the museum’s collection to create new portraits for his exhibition.
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“[Wiley] usually uses Renaissance portraiture—the grand traditional portraiture that often depicts merchants, particularly White Europeans—and his aim is to replace these individuals with Black individuals from the African diaspora around the world,” Klemm says.
Following the exhibition, SLAM purchased Wiley’s “Charles I.” The museum’s new installation will allow guests to view his work alongside its centuries-old predecessor for the first time.
“This is an intervention into historic galleries,” Klemm says. “From the contemporary point of view, I think it’s really wonderful to see that articulation and range of art history and to see [Wiley’s] project elevating contemporary individuals into the realm of historic portraiture, especially contemporary individuals who have been historically erased from those traditions.”
The differences between the two works are immediately apparent. Beyond Wiley’s study of Cooper instead of Charles I, the background of his painting explodes with color and life, while Mytens’ is more understated. Further, the regal objects that flank Charles I—an orb, scepter, and crown—have been omitted from Wiley’s portrait.
However, senior curator of European art to 1800 Judy Mann says one important aspect of Mytens’ depiction remains unchanged in Wiley’s: The symbolic hand resting on the subject’s hip. Traditionally, the pose is a statement of male power and entitlement.
“[Wiley] did adopt that for [Cooper’s] pose, which changes everything,” Mann says. “She’s in casual clothing. She’s a woman. She’s an African-American woman. He really upends everything we thought about previously that was related to that very simple gesture—the elbow. None of that holds with her. It’s in her selfhood that the power resides, not in these accoutrements of power.”
Both “Charles I” paintings are now on view in Gallery 238 at the Saint Louis Art Museum.
