A painting by Kehinde Wiley, the artist known for painting former President Barack Obama's official portrait, has been removed from a U.S. Embassy in the Dominican Republic. The artwork, titled "Young Artists After Siamesas 1960," was taken down due to concerns over "woke ideologies," according to reports.
The painting was part of the U.S. State Department's Art in Embassies program, established in 1963 to foster cross-cultural dialogue and diplomacy through art. Wiley collaborated with students from two prominent Dominican art schools, the Facultad de Artes and the Altos de Chavon School of Design, for the work. The subjects depicted in the painting were modeled by four local art students, and the piece drew inspiration from two Dominican artworks: Celeste Woss y Gil’s 1940 painting “Desnudo Feminine” and Gilberto Hernández Ortega’s 1960 work “Siamesas.”
Wiley has previously faced criticism from conservative commentators for his 2012 painting “Judith and Holofernes.” That work, which depicts a Black woman holding the severed head of a white woman, was later described by Wiley as a commentary on the phrase "kill whitey." The painting reimagines a 17th-century artwork by Giovanni Baglione that illustrates the biblical story of Judith beheading an invading general.