Khan’s “After The Tomb”

Idris Khan made a new series of paintings specifically for his exhibition at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Like with his early photographs, he looked at existing images and considered how to otherwise interpret them. One of the works he selected was Francisco de Zurbarán’s Saint Francis of Assisi in His Tomb (1630/34), a painting in the Museum’s collection he said, “really jumped out.”

Khan reinterpreted the work by the Spanish painter as a color field, selecting hues he considered instrumental to the composition and arranging them based on where and how prominent they are. Could color alone evoke the iconic painting? “Maybe it’s not an exact representation. I’m not trying to do that,” he has clarified. “It’s the interpretation of it bit by bit, if you like, and the energy that it brings.”

Khan’s interpretation is surprising. While shades of brown, gray, and black fill Zurbarán’s composition and endow the shrouded figure of Saint Francis with mystery and gravitas, Khan’s After The Tomb (2023) broadens our perceptions of these colors. In his reappraisal of the color palette, he includes several important and less obvious hues—a purpletinged earth tone, warm ochre, dark green, and cobalt blue. Indeed, closer inspection of the historic painting reveals the golden glow of the skull resting between Saint Francis’s hands, the many permutations of shadows that shade his shoulders, and the nuances of the dark background that engulfs him.

Thanks to Khan’s composition, we can further appreciate the array of colors that contribute to the compelling nature of Zurbarán’s painting, from the frigid depth of the tomb that surrounds him to the gilded, otherworldly skull he contemplates.

Francisco de Zurbarán’s Saint Francis of Assisi in His Tomb is on view in gallery S114, in the first-floor European galleries.

This exhibition is curated by Marcelle Polednik, PhD, Donna and Donald Baumgartner Director of the Milwaukee Art Museum.

Learn more about Idris Khan: Repeat After Me.