Connecticut HQ Art

Henry Taylor is well known for his portraits that reveal the forces at play, both individualistic and societal, that come to bear on his subject. The end result is not a mere idealized image, but a complete narrative of a person and his history.

"Untitled" depicts Malcolm X being interviewed by reporters in 1964, the same year that President Lyndon Johnson ran for re-election. Malcolm X referred to 1964 as “the year of the ballot or the bullet,” in his call for a global fight for racial justice, stating, “We intend to expand [the freedom struggle] from the level of civil rights to the level of human rights.”

As homage to beloved CalArts professor and Los Angeles–based late artist John Baldessari, Taylor conceived and completed this series during the COVID-19 pandemic. In this work, Taylor places stylistic and bold brightly hued dots over the faces of Malcolm X and the others depicted in the original image captured by Herman Hiller. In so doing, he expertly pulls this historic photograph of Malcolm X firmly into the present, revisiting the words of Malcolm X and the work of Baldessari. Taylor provides a poignant reflection on a tumultuous year—one defined by social unrest and racial injustice in the United States, starkly and inescapably laid bare during the COVID-19 pandemic and election.

Taylor has been the subject of numerous exhibitions in the United States and internationally, and his work is in prominent public collections, including the Bourse de commerce—Pinault Collection (Paris, France), the Bronx Museum of the Arts, Carnegie Museum of Art (Pittsburgh), Fondation Louis Vuitton (Paris), Hammer Museum (Los Angeles), Institute of Contemporary Art Boston, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Museum of Modern Art (New York), Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University (Durham, North Carolina), Pérez Art Museum Miami, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and Whitney Museum of American Art (New York).

In 2018, Taylor was the recipient of the Robert De Niro Sr. Prize in 2018 for his outstanding achievements in painting. Taylor’s work was presented at the 2017 Whitney Biennial and 58th Venice Biennale in 2019. Taylor opened a solo exhibition at Hauser & Wirth Somerset (U.K.) in February 2021. A major survey exhibition of his work opened at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, in 2022.