U.S. Painter Jordan Casteel Joins Thaddaeus Ropac

Jordan Casteel b. 1989, United States Follow +

American painter Jordan Casteel, who is recognised for portraits of people in her community in Harlem, has joined Thaddaeus Ropac. The global gallery will jointly represent the artist with her long-time New York dealer Casey Kaplan.

Thaddaeus Ropac will present an exhibition of new works by Casteel at their London outpost this April, before hosting her first major European solo show in Paris in 2026. The gallery has additional spaces in Salzburg, Milan, and Seoul.

‘Jordan Casteel stands out in her generation of painters for her extraordinary acuteness of observation, and empathetic treatment of her subjects,’ founder Thaddaeus Ropac said in a statement.

Casteel, who was born in Denver, Colorado, in 1989, completed an MFA at Yale University in 2014. She later taught at Rutgers University in Newark from 2016 to 2021. Her portraiture earned her a MacArthur Foundation fellowship in 2021.

‘Through painting, I have the opportunity to honour the landscape of my life and all the people who have played a huge part in it,’ Casteel said. The artist cites Alice Neel and Bob Thompson among influences.

Casteel’s work features in major institutional collections, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; The Whitney Museum of American Art (all New York); and Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

Alongside defining Black figurative artists like Michael Armitage, Lubaina Himid, and Kerry James Marshall, Casteel is in the touring exhibition The Time Is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure, which debuted at London’s National Portrait Gallery last year, and opens next month at the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh. —[O]

Main image: Jordan Casteel, Naima's Gift (Deon, Kym and Noah) (2023) (detail). Oil on canvas. 238.76 x 203.2 cm. Courtesy © Jordan Casteel. Photo: David Schulze.