In his portraits, contemporary artist Robert Peterson renders African American life beautifully and joyfully, rejecting stereotypes to celebrate the “Black experience as [he] knows it.” The artist’s first major museum exhibition, Somewhere In America features key paintings from Peterson’s existing works, as well as over 20 new works, many painted on a monumental scale. Each painting—loving depictions of individuals, couples, and families in everyday moments—commemorates Peterson’s community in small-town Oklahoma, his wider circle of friends and family throughout the country, and the people he encounters that spark memories of those he has known, both past and present. Self-taught, Peterson picked up a paintbrush for the first time in 2012 to distract himself from an upcoming hip replacement. He had his first solo exhibition in New York City less than a year later. Today, his work sells out at art fairs and galleries and is collected by museums, with works at the Philbrook Museum of Art, Weisman Art Museum, and Museum of Fine Arts St. Petersburg. Somewhere in America tells a deeply personal— yet widely recognizable—story of family, community, and legacy.
Image credit: Robert Peterson, “Head in the Clouds”, 2022. Oil on canvas, 48 x 72 inches. Collection of Yvonne Cook and family