Jordan Casteel facts for kids

Jordan Casteel (born 1989) is an American artist who paints people. She is known for her colorful portraits of friends, family, and people she meets in Harlem, New York. Jordan Casteel lives and works in New York City.

About Jordan Casteel's Life

Jordan Casteel was born in Denver, Colorado, in 1989. She has a twin brother and an older brother. Her family has a strong history of working for civil rights. Her grandfather, Whitney Young, was a leader of the National Urban League. Jordan was named after Vernon Jordan, who took over from her grandfather. Her grandmother, Margaret Buckner Young, wrote children's books.

Growing up, Jordan was inspired by famous artists like Romare Bearden, Faith Ringgold, and Jacob Lawrence.

Her Education and Studies

Jordan Casteel studied art at the University of Georgia in Italy in 2010. She then graduated from Agnes Scott College in Georgia in 2011. She continued her studies at Yale University, where she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in Painting and Printmaking in 2014. While at Yale, she showed her art in several group exhibitions.

Jordan Casteel has a health condition called lupus. She has shared that it was especially challenging during her time in graduate school.

Her Artistic Journey

After finishing her studies at Yale, Jordan Casteel moved to New York City to focus on her painting career.

Early Exhibitions

Her first solo art show in New York was called Visible Man. It opened in August 2014. From 2015 to 2016, Casteel was an artist-in-residence at The Studio Museum in Harlem. This program gave her a studio space, money for materials, and a chance to show her art.

Her second solo show, Brothers, opened in October 2015. It featured large paintings of two people together. These paintings were created during another art residency.

Major Shows and Recognition

In September 2017, Casteel's third solo exhibition, Nights in Harlem, opened. This show continued her focus on black men, but placed them in detailed indoor and outdoor settings. Art critics praised her work. One critic, Jerry Saltz, said she was ready to become a leading contemporary painter.

Jordan Casteel had her first big museum exhibition at the Denver Art Museum in February 2019. It showed about thirty of her paintings from 2014 to 2018. These paintings featured people from her neighborhood in Harlem.

In 2020, she painted a portrait of fashion designer Aurora James for the cover of Vogue magazine. Her first major solo museum show in New York City, Jordan Casteel: Within Reach, opened at the New Museum in February 2020. In 2021, she received a MacArthur Fellowship, which is a very important award for talented individuals.

Her painting Lourdes and Katrina (2019) is now part of the permanent collection at the Pérez Art Museum Miami.

Themes and Painting Style

Yvonne and James II (2021) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2022

Jordan Casteel mostly paints black people. She uses many different colors for their skin tones, depending on the light in her photographs. You might see shades of browns, grays, greens, blues, and oranges in her portraits.

Her bold use of color has been compared to famous painters like Jacob Lawrence and Henri Matisse. She loves to experiment with how colors affect the mood of her paintings and how they relate to the people she paints.

Casteel's art comes from photographs she takes of her subjects. She wants viewers to think about what it means to be a black man in the U.S. today. She once said, "The paintings show my view of black men as a sister, daughter, friend, and lover. That view is full of understanding and love. I see their humanity, and I want the audience to see them as fathers, sons, brothers, and individuals with their own stories."

Teaching Art

Jordan Casteel is also a teacher. She is an Assistant Professor of Painting at Rutgers University - Newark.

Personal Life

Jordan Casteel lives in Harlem with her husband, David Schulze. He is a photographer from Australia.

Exhibitions and Artworks

Jordan Casteel has had many solo shows and public art displays across the United States. Some of her notable solo shows include:

• Visible Man (2014) in New York City
• Jordan Casteel: Harlem Notes (2017) in Charlotte, North Carolina
• Jordan Casteel: Returning the Gaze (2019-2020), which started at the Denver Art Museum
• The Baayfalls (2019-2022) on the High Line in New York
• Jordan Casteel: Within Reach (2020) at the New Museum in New York

Notable Works in Public Collections

Many of Jordan Casteel's paintings are now part of important museum collections. Here are a few:

• The Baayfalls (2017) at the Museum of Modern Art, New York City
• Kevin the Kiteman (2017) at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York
• Memorial (2017) at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
• Flight (2018) at the Cantor Arts Center, Stanford, California
• Ourlando (2018) at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas
• Shirley (Spa Boutique2go) (2018) at the Rollins Museum of Art, Winter Park, Florida
• Sylvia's (Taniedra, Kendra, Bedelia, Crizette, De'Sean) (2018) at the Denver Art Museum
• Lourdes and Katrina (2019) at the Pérez Art Museum Miami
• Barack (2020) at the Art Institute of Chicago
• Chano Pozo (2021) at the Whitney Museum, New York
• Yvonne and James II (2021) at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York