WAM to feature work by Obama portraitist, its first purchase with sculpture proceeds

Carrie Rengers
·2 min read

Four months after the Wichita Art Museum’s controversial sale of a Henry Moore sculpture — what became, as one person put it, something of a flapdoodle — the museum has used part of the $10.5 million proceeds for its first purchase from the new American Art Acquisition Fund.

“We’re really, really excited to show it to the community,” director Anne Kraybill said.

“Portrait of Yaima Polledo & Isabel Pozo” by Kehinde Wiley, the artist best known for his official portrait of President Obama that hangs at the National Portrait Gallery, is a vibrant, massive 9-foot painting of two women resplendent in dance costumes, said curator Tera Hedrick.

“It’s big and bold and beautiful,” she said.

“It is from his time in Havana,” Kraybill said. “He was very inspired by the idea of Carnival and circus, which has a long history in paintings.”

The acquisition will be the featured piece of a new exhibit that debuts Friday called “Upside Down, Topsy-Turvy, and In-Between: Images of Carnival and Circus from the Wichita Art Museum.”

“We’re going to have a great kind of circus-themed event,” Kraybill said.

Kehinde Wiley’s “Portrait of Yaima Polledo & Isabel Pozo” is a massive 9-foot portrait that will be featured in a new exhibit at the Wichita Art Museum. “It’s big and bold and beautiful,” said curator Tera Hedrick.
Kehinde Wiley’s “Portrait of Yaima Polledo & Isabel Pozo” is a massive 9-foot portrait that will be featured in a new exhibit at the Wichita Art Museum. “It’s big and bold and beautiful,” said curator Tera Hedrick.

From 5 to 7:30 p.m., there will be aerialists, fire-eaters, cotton candy and a signature drink called the Flapdoodle — a nod to all the drama surrounding the Moore sale and the creation of the new fund.

Kraybill won’t discuss what Wiley’s work cost.

“We generally don’t talk about that.”

She did say that “it was substantially more than what the Wichita Art Museum has paid for in the past.”

Kraybill noted that much of the fund is still preserved and that this is the only piece that has been purchased so far.

Hedrick called Wiley “one of the leading American artists of our moment.”

She said he’s known for placing Black people in “these really regal, commanding portraits on a grand scale that are often based on very famous European paintings.”

His works “often riff on really important pieces of art,” Hedrick said. “He’ll take a young hip hop guy from LA on a rearing horse like he’s Napoleon.”

Kraybill said Hedrick put Wiley’s work in a focused collection of other pieces with Carnival and circus themes.

“It features some really great gems that haven’t been out in some time,” Kraybill said. “It activates our collection in a completely new way.”