ILTS Visual Arts (214) Content Area Practice Exam

The idea here is recognizing an American portrait painter who renders Black subjects in a natural, contemporary setting in a lifelike way. Kehinde Wiley fits this description best. He’s renowned for large-scale, highly realistic portraits of Black men and women dressed in modern clothing or streetwear, placed in settings that echo classical European portraiture while updating the scene to today’s world. This approach both honors the grand tradition of portraiture and reclaims it for contemporary Black subjects. A high-profile example is his official portrait of Barack Obama, which showcases his polished, true-to-life rendering and the fusion of modern attire with a reverent, formal composition.

Kara Walker isn’t known for naturalistic portraiture of contemporary Black subjects; her work often features silhouettes and provocative themes about race and power. Jacob Lawrence created vivid narrative scenes with a more stylized, mid-20th-century approach rather than contemporary, ultra-realistic portraits. Elizabeth Catlett is celebrated for sculpture and printmaking focusing on Black women and social issues, not contemporary painted portraits in the realist sense.