× Expand Courtesy of the Saint Louis Art Museum 2018.124 Kehinde Wiley, American, born 1977; “Charles I”, 2018; oil on linen; 96 x 72 in.

If you loved 2018's “Kehinde Wiley: Saint Louis” exhibit at the Saint Louis Art Museum, you're in luck. On Wednesday, the museum announced it acquired one of the portrait artist's large-scale works from the exhibit, Charles I, pictured above.

In a press release, Brent R. Benjamin, the Barbara B. Taylor director of the Saint Louis Art Museum, called the purchase an "institutional priority." “'Kehinde Wiley: Saint Louis' was tied closely to our collection and to our city, and it encouraged each of us to examine artistic traditions, current events, and the power of art to unite our community,” he said. “I’m pleased that generations of St. Louisans will be able to enjoy this vibrant painting.”

Wiley, the artist who painted former President Barack Obama's portrait for the Smithsonian National Gallery in Washington, D.C., often depicts African-Americans from present day in traditional European and American portraiture styles. For the SLAM exhibit, he visited St. Louis and invited people he met in north St. Louis neighborhoods and Ferguson to pose for him. He based Charles I on a 1633 portrait of the English monarch by Daniel Martensz Mytens the Elder, but rather than selecting a man to sit for the portrait, he chose Ashley Cooper. Cooper's sister, Shontay Haynes, is depicted in Wiley’s Portrait of a Florentine Nobleman. It was shown in the exhibition as well.

× Video created in partnership with HEC Media.

In the release, Simon Kelly, the museum’s curator of modern and contemporary art, said that “Kehinde Wiley plays a critical role in the contemporary renaissance of portrait painting as a genre. By referencing historical depictions of the powerful and giving his modern sitters the same authority, Wiley creates portraits that are richly complex and visually stunning.”

Hannah Klemm, the museum’s assistant curator for modern and contemporary art, said in a release that “Wiley’s paintings welcome African Americans, Africans and people of the African diaspora into the space of the canvas and assert their right to occupy that space. For the Saint Louis Art Museum, ‘Charles I’ goes further—the painting not only expands who is represented in portraiture, it literally brings the local community into the collection.”

The portrait isn't on view yet, but you can catch it this summer in the contemporary galleries. It will be displayed beside works by other African-American artists, including Kerry James Marshall, one of the artists Wiley told SLM he would choose to paint his portrait.