ArtSpectrm

Untitled (Self-Portrait, Philadelphia, PA), 1968
Barkley L. Hendricks

Jack Shainman Gallery

Every year, on the first Monday of May, celebrities and socialites don the finest fashion to walk the red carpet at the Met Gala, celebrating a major new exhibition at the Met Museum’s Costume Institute. Often, these outfits inspire obsession: In 2015, Rihanna’s outfit inspired a myriad of memes comparing her to a fried egg, and last year, South African pop star Tyla transformed into an hourglass, following 2024’s theme—“The Garden of Time”.

This year’s Met Gala theme is “Superfine: Tailoring Black Style,” which is also the title of a new exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute that will highlight menswear trends throughout Black American history. The gala will be co-hosted by Anna Wintour as well as notably fashionable Black male celebrities: actor Colman Domingo, Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton, A$AP Rocky, and Pharrell Williams.

Protective Covenants & Restrictions, 2018
Derek Fordjour

Nina Johnson

Untitled (Brighton), TBC
Tyler Mitchell

Artsy

The show nods to the longstanding tradition of Black dandyism. The term “dandy” dates back to 18th-century Europe and describes men, like the early 19th-century socialite Beau Brummell, who had a predilection for dressing well, partying, and enjoying art. Within Black communities, dandyism emerged during slavery (often referring to servants in wealthy households who were decked out in fashionable yet outdated outfits). It continued to evolve throughout the 20th century as a way to assimilate into Western society. Over time, dandyism came to mean more than assimilation, and adopters of this style used clothing to question gender norms with vibrant colors and well-fitting garments, like the zoot suits of the 1940s. Black dandyism became a vibe, not just a fashion style, and pioneers in fashion, visual art, and literature—from Sammy Davis Jr. to James Baldwin—began to become associated with the term.

Black dandies are known for their exuberant style and unfazed attitude, a defiant response to a society where Black people are marginalized and stereotyped. And today, it’s not only for men: Think of Janelle Monáe’s carefully cut coats with precisely placed patterns or the Thom Browne gown—designed to look like a traditional men’s button-up shirt with a black tie—that Doechii wore to the 2025 Grammy ceremony. Now, black dandyism has taken on an empowering meaning that allows its adopters to challenge prescribed societal norms through immaculate individual style, and its impact can be seen across creative fields from music, to theater, to photography.

Every year, the Met Gala is an opportunity for the worlds of fashion and celebrity to come together through outfits inspired by a single theme.This year, we’re expecting luxe, tailored tuxedos, custom-made jackets, and some sharp hats. But it is also a huge moment for the art world. As we look forward to the exhibition opening and the gala itself, we’ve rounded up contemporary artists who capture the aesthetic vision of Black dandyism.

Barkley Hendricks

B. 1945, Philadelphia. D. 2017, New London, Connecticut.

Known for: immaculate realist oil portraits representing Black pride at its most stylish

Steve, 1976
Barkley L. Hendricks

Whitney Museum of American Art

Born in Philadelphia in 1945, Barkley Hendricks worked across multiple media during his lifetime, though he primarily focused on painting and photography. He is best known for his realist oil portraits of Black figures in his community, which were recently the subject of a major survey at The Frick. Most of all, Hendricks is known for the attitude and swagger that his subjects exude, evoking the ethos of Black dandyism. Many of the figures in Hendricks’ paintings are shown in stylish outfits; one such piece, Steve (1976), shows a man dressed in white pants, a white trench coat, and gold-rimmed aviator sunglasses. The soft tailoring and unique touches make the outfit distinctively dandy. Another of Hendrick’s pieces, Bloke (2016), features a stylishly dressed young man: He wears a cotton candy colored suit, reminiscent of the matching ensembles worn by dandies in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As Antwaun Sargent, who curated The Frick show, told me: “Those choices are important, because he’s also using his styling and editing right on the canvas as a way to deepen our understanding of these people.”

Bisa Butler

B. 1973, City of Orange, New Jersey. Lives and works in South Orange, New Jersey.

Known for: exuberant quilted portraits that pay homage to Black history

Zakani, 2016
Bisa Butler

Richard Beavers Gallery

Soweto Style, 2016
Bisa Butler

Richard Beavers Gallery

Bisa Butler is celebrated for her brightly colored quilted portraits of Black people, often using reference photos from historical archives or family albums. Many of Butler’s pieces pay homage to themes of Black resilience and history. For example, the multimedia work Southside Sunday Morning (2018) shows five boys sporting patchworked suits, wing-tipped shoes, and multicolored fedoras. The figures are bathed in lush reds and greens; geometric-printed and textured fabrics add depth to the composition. Butler’s rendering of these adolescents is evocative of more contemporary versions of Black dandies—the piece’s protagonist dons a red, blue, and yellow suit jacket, and his entire outfit fits his body perfectly, making it feel like it was made for him. Custom-made pieces with distinctive patterns are considered hallmarks of dandyism. Contemporary fashion designer Dapper Dan, a modern-day dandy, has experimented with innovative structures and prints in his designs. Similarly, Butler’s works draw on the significance of distinctive fabric and personalization within Black communities, portraying her subjects in surprising color combinations, and always on their terms.

The artist’s first solo museum exhibition, “Bisa Butler: Portraits,” opened at the Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, New York, in 2020, and institutions including the Newark Museum and the Toledo Museum of Art have acquired her works.

Audrey Lyall

B. 1956, San Francisco. Lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Known for: fierce, fashion-inspired collages with wild patterning

P*ssy Facing the World , 2023
Audrey Lyall

New Image Art

Multimedia artist Audrey Lyall crafts creative collages that reference everything from fashion designs, to beauty rituals, to critical theory. Most of all, they are bold encapsulations of contemporary fashion culture.

“The way I draw the human figure is very much informed by fashion illustration techniques where the body gets elongated and poses are very exaggerated,” Lyall told Platform Art in an interview. “I love the elegance and drama of this drawing style. It’s all about the attitude of the figure.” Such extravagant forms and innovative uses of patterns nod to the tradition of Black dandyism and its obsession with fashion.

Movin’ & Groovin’ (2022) is a diptych that depicts three figures rendered in this way— the multicolored subjects of the painting have stretched out torsos and limbs, and their skin is patchworked with carefully placed patterns. Lyall’s 12-by-9-inch piece Sherbet (2024) shows a collaged woman with large, pouting lips and multicolored skin. The proportions of the latter piece seem to be reminiscent of a drawing pulled from a designer’s sketchpad, and one eye of the figure looks like it was cut straight out of the pages of Vogue.

Lyall has had a solo exhibition at New Image Art and ERA gallery, and has shown her work at 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair with Superposition gallery.

Tyler Mitchell

B. 1995, Atlanta. Lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Known for: celebrity-approved shots that treasure the beauty in Black communities

Untitled (Topanga), 2018
Tyler Mitchell

Artsy Auctions

Many of Tyler Mitchell’s photographs evoke the themes of dandyism: In fact, curators at the Metropolitan Museum of Art thought that the 29-year-old artist’s oeuvre embodied the theme so well that they commissioned him to shoot the catalogue for the exhibit. Many of those pictures—which depict Spike Lee, Ayo Edebiri, Dapper Dan, and others—feature elements of dandyism, including strong suits and tailored outerwear. Indeed, many of Mitchell’s other pieces, like Untitled (Brighton) (2018), also speak to the photographer’s interest in fashion. This bold photograph depicts two figures wearing well-fitting black suits, which the viewer can see clearly. However, black fabric obscures the faces of the subjects in a way that’s evocative of René Magritte’s seminal work The Lovers (1928); Mitchell’s decision to highlight the subjects’ outfits—but not their faces—makes us question who the photo’s protagonists are and what their clothes reveal about them.

Mitchell was featured in the Artsy Vanguard in 2018 and is now represented by mega-gallery Gagosian.

Nick Cave

B. 1959, Fulton, Missouri. Lives and works in Chicago.

Known for: bombastic textile sculptures with a political edge

Soundsuit, 2009
Nick Cave

Jack Shainman Gallery

Soundsuit, 2011
Nick Cave

The Museum of Modern Art

The multi-disciplinary artist Nick Cave grew up in a family of creatives who fashioned clothing from discarded fabric—his aunts would often make patterns out of paper bags and produce a whole new outfit in one day. Since then, Cave has been fascinated with the ways that fabrics can lie across the body. Many of his textile works are meticulously constructed and reference fashion history. His “Soundsuits,” for example, present massive sculptural costumes that obscure the body head-to-toe with bright, unexpected materials, from handbags to fake fur. These sculptures’ bold, unapologetic vision of the human form pays homage to Black dandies’ fashion-forward swagger.

Cave’s practice was on view in a recent standout show that inaugurated Jack Shainman’s new space in New York. In that show, the wood panel work Grapht (2024) splices vintage metal serving trays and needlepoint on wood panels, giving the artwork a patterned appearance evocative of modern Black dandy style, like the quilt A$AP Rocky wore to the 2021 Met Gala.

Cornelius Annor

B. 1990, Accra. Lives and works in Accra.

Known for: joyful portraits of Black family life that take textiles seriously

Untitled, 2021
Cornelius Annor

Dumas Limbach

Cornelius Annor Ma Wo Nsa So Hem Wo Pa, 2023
Cornelius Annor

MARUANI MERCIER GALLERY

Cornelius Annor’s vibrant paintings showcase his personal family history and Ghanaian fashion. My Baby Doll (2023), for instance, is a tender depiction of a woman and a child; the woman wears an intricately patterned yellow, green, and white dress and a baby blue ribbon affixed to her hair. Cornelius Annor Ma Wo Nsa So Hem Wo Pa (2023) is also replete with colors and textures. The painting’s subjects dance to an unknown beat; they sport flared jeans, patterned tops, and lush afros; and they stand on top of a checked dance floor with collaged tiles. These figures’ ’70s outfits and visible love of partying make them feel like dandies.

Annor’s paintings have been shown internationally, including in a recent group show at Pearl Lam Galleries in Shanghai and a 2022 solo show in Belgium’s Maruani Mercier, which represents the artist in Europe, along with Venus Over Manhattan in the U.S.

Derek Fordjour

B. 1974, Memphis. Lives and works in New York City.

Known for: geometric, textured paintings in a soft palette that elevate contemporary Black life

No. 54, 2017
Derek Fordjour

Emily Friedman Fine Art

STRWMN, 2020
Derek Fordjour

Petzel Gallery

The Memphis-born artist Derek Fordjour has made a career creating multimedia works that combine geometric shapes, layered outfits, and patterned surfaces. Many of his works carefully portray typical rites of passage, in which his Black subjects play a starring role. Fordjour’s piece No. 54 (2017), for instance, uses oil pastel, charcoal, acrylic, cardboard, and carved newspaper mounted on canvas to create a dynamic tableau showing a proud athlete in profile as he looks off into the distance. Another work, STRWMN (2020), shows a man in a lavender bowling hat, a red sports coat, and heeled red shoes. The latter piece evokes the passionate spirit of a Black dandy, as the subject drips with a definitive and unique style. His clothing appears impeccably made, luxurious, and structured, much like many clothes that Black dandies throughout history have gravitated towards.

Derek Fordjour was featured in the Artsy Vanguard 2019, and his work is included in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Dallas Museum of Art, Guggenheim Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

This week, Times Square Arts debuted Grounded in the Stars, a new 12-foot-tall bronze sculpture by British artist Thomas J Price. The work, depicting a figure with a matt black finish, will be installed at Broadway and 46th Street through June 17th. It marks Price’s first public artwork in New York City and coincides with his debut solo exhibition with Hauser & Wirth, “Resilience of Scale,” which runs until June 14th.

Price is known for his large-scale sculptures that interrogate identity, monumentality, and representation. Grounded in the Stars, which depicts a woman with hair in braids and everyday clothing, represents a stark contrast to the plaza’s pedestaled monuments of white men. The contrapposto pose is intended as a reference to Michelangelo’s David (ca. 1501–04).

“Times Square stands as an iconic symbol and site of convergence, uniting people from all walks of life, individual stories, and experiences intersecting on a global platform,” Price said in a press statement. “he intention of my public works is to become part of the place they inhabit and its physical, material history, as well as the visitors that pass through and around the location, no matter how fleeting.”

Time Square Arts will also present Price’s stop-motion animation “Man Series” across more than 90 billboards. Part of the organization’s “Midnight Moment” program, the animation will run nightly from 11:57 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. from May 1st to 31st. The animation works will feature six clay heads of Black men against pitch-black backgrounds. These faces are enlivened with subtle eye and facial movements, drawing attention to how we perceive people.

“I hope Grounded in the Stars and ‘Man Series’ will instigate meaningful connections and bind intimate emotional states that allow for deeper reflection around the human condition and greater cultural diversity,” Price said.

Price’s inaugural solo show with Hauser & Wirth features five colossal bronze sculptures—some reaching 12 feet tall—at the gallery’s Wooster Street location. The gallery will also feature 18 framed images alongside the sculptures.

Two artists are on a quest to preserve endangered photos of daily life and culture in Nigeria’s biggest city.

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One of the best-known broadcasters of his time, Bob Ross, hosted the television show The Joy of Painting on PBS from 1983 to 1994. The show, which spanned 403 episodes over 31 seasons, was syndicated to nearly 300 PBS stations nationwide and attracted more than 80 million viewers at its peak.

The popular instructional program helped viewers become landscape painters by following Ross’s “wet-on-wet” oil painting technique, also known as “alla prima,” which involves applying wet paint directly onto wet paint, allowing for smooth blending and vibrant colors.

Thanks to his consistent presence in the media, Ross remains a household name in the U.S. today. Recently, however, it is Ross’s paintings that have been catching the eyes of art collectors. Last September, a pair of the artist’s pieces sold at Bonhams Skinner—the first time such works have appeared at a major auction house—for $32,000 and $51,200 each (including fees).

Demand for Ross’s paintings is surging. The artist is estimated to have executed around 30,000 paintings in his lifetime, and collectors are paying increased attention. “We believe we are just at the beginning of the Bob Ross market,” said Ryan Nelson, owner of Modern Artifact, which has sold a number of Ross paintings. “With each passing year, appreciation for Bob Ross continues to grow, and we anticipate his market will follow a trajectory similar to other historically significant artists.”

Bob Ross’s continued relevance

Bob Ross’s influence has endured well beyond his passing in 1995. The Joy of Painting is regularly rerun and is available on streaming services, along with other Ross-related content

Ross has been immortalized in documentaries, including Bob Ross: The Happy Painter (2011) and Bob Ross: Happy Accidents, Betrayal & Greed (2021). In 2023, the satirical feature film Paint starred Owen Wilson as an artist hosting a TV show on a PBS station in Vermont, a portrayal that drew comparisons to Ross. Younger generations are also getting on board, too: In 2015, for instance, a channel on the streaming platform Twitch played back-to-back episodes of the show and garnered 5.6 million unique viewers.

Today, Bob Ross has more than 6 million YouTube subscribers, a million friends on Facebook, and 547,000 followers on Instagram. More than 50 episodes of “the soft-spoken guy painting happy clouds, mountains, and trees in about twenty-six television minutes” are available as podcasts on Spotify.

Ross’s contemporary resonance was boosted further during the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020, when viewers were drawn to his soothing approach to artmaking. “I really do believe the greatest driver was the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown that trapped us all desperately seeking any little bit of relief we could find,” said Adam D. Henning, owner of Henning Fine Art, which has also sold several works by Ross. “We now appreciate and see the more important social role that he played, affecting literally millions of lives while alive and then even more in the decades after.”

Ross’s paintings have also entered institutions: In 2022, the Smithsonian National Museum of American History acquired four Ross landscape paintings for its “Entertainment Nation” exhibition, and that same year, works by Ross were included in the group exhibition “WEIRD SENSATION FEELS GOOD: The World of ASMR” at London’s Design Museum. Ross will also “later his year or early next” be the subject of a show at the Minnetrista Museum in Indiana, which will feature dozens of works from The Joy of Painting, according to the Wall Street Journal.

How the market for Bob Ross paintings has developed

Triptych Mountain Landscape, 1981
Bob Ross

Henning Fine Art

Nearly 25 years after Ross’s passing, a 2019 New York Times article, “Where Are All the Bob Ross Paintings? We Found Them” noted that cases of his paintings being listed for sale were “rare.” The report highlighted a warehouse full of paintings at Bob Ross Inc., a company that Ross founded with Annette and Walt Kowalski in 1985. Nearly all of Ross’s paintings he created on air for PBS are owned by Bob Ross Inc., according to the story, and the firm also stewards the authentication process for Ross works.

According to FiveThirtyEight, 1,143 original works were executed in The Joy of Painting, but according to NPR, Ross once suggested that he had painted more than 30,000 works in his career. “Bob didn’t sell a lot of paintings, but he would give them away, so there are a lot of people out there that have paintings,” Joan Kowalski of Bob Ross Inc. shared on the Design by Experience podcast in July 2022.

In recent years, however, things have begun to change. “His paintings have become so popular that people are wanting to get them authenticated [which is what Bob Ross Inc. does], so there are a lot of them coming out now,” noted Kowalski on the podcast. “A guy in Florida drove 14 hours to get a painting authenticated that he bought at a Goodwill outlet for $1.35.”

In September 2023, Modern Artifact made headlines when it listed A Walk in the Woods—a 1983 painting completed on air during the first episode of The Joy of Painting—for a staggering $9.85 million.

“It is exceedingly rare to find any Bob Ross episode pieces, and this is a one-of-a-kind opportunity to own the very first one,” the gallery wrote in its press release for the work. “Although Bob Ross’s paintings have become highly sought after by collectors, the market is still emerging. “A Walk in the Woods” is a museum-worthy piece that will set the standard for the continued development of the Bob Ross art market.”

Modern Artifact acquired the canvas, which Bob Ross Inc. verified as authentic, from a former volunteer at the Falls Church, Virginia, PBS station, where the first season of The Joy of Painting aired. The volunteer reportedly bought it at a station fundraising auction months after it was painted. According to Nelson, “Ross originally sold his paintings for as little as $5, as they were not widely regarded as collectible art at the time.”

Since then, the market for Ross’s paintings has continued to blossom. In September 2024, Bonhams Skinner has sold four Ross works painted between 1968 and 1978 in the price range of $32,000 to $51,400 since September 2024. According to Modern Artifact’s Nelson, “In the past year, we have sold Bob Ross originals in a wide price range, from $10,000 to over six figures.”

Bob Ross Original Painting on Velvet inside Gold Pan Signed Alaskan Northern Lights and Mountain Cabin on Stilts, ca. 1971
Bob Ross

Modern Artifact

Original Bob Ross Painting Signed Oil on Velvet Inside Gold Pan, ca. 1971
Bob Ross

Modern Artifact

Much of the reason for the growth in Ross’s market has to do with how his works are being perceived by buyers, particularly those with an affinity for Ross and his TV show. “Nostalgia is a big factor. Truth be told, I’ve had a Bob Ross bobblehead on my shelf for many years,” said Robin Starr, general manager at Bonhams Skinner. “An awful lot of us grew up watching him paint, and that generation will find solace in owning a piece with such familiarity and nostalgia for them.”

Indeed, many of those who grew up with Ross have also reached the point where they are in a position to buy his art, noted Henning: “We had to let the children who were most impacted by it become of age go to college, work good-paying jobs, and settle into adulthood,” he said. “This is the cycle for many groups of collectibles.”

As more works enter the market to address this interest, the market for Ross paintings is poised to grow further. An enduring figure in American culture, Ross’s appeal is as strong now as it was when he was on air. “When people see his work, they don’t just remember his television series, they recall a figure who inspired them to believe in their own creative potential,” said Nelson. “His message was always about more than painting—it was about overcoming doubt and embracing the joy of creation.”

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