If institutional rhetoric around decolonising art history sometimes risks descending into the kind of platitude that disguises the absence of real change, the Chicago-based artist is among those putting the idea into practice. Marshall has been painting black bodies into history for nearly four decades, putting them at the centre of a pictorial tradition from which they have historically been excluded. In ‘attending to this absence of black representation in the historical narrative’, Marshall has established himself among the most influential as well as technically gifted living painters. In terms of exhibitions, it’s been a quieter year, notwithstanding a solo at David Zwirner, London, that concluded last November and the inclusion of his ‘epic comic’ Rythm Mastr (1999–ongoing) in the Carnegie International. But his influence extends beyond the museum: in November, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced that a 1995 mural for the Chicago Public Library would be withdrawn from auction at Christie’s after the artist accused the city of ‘exploiting the work of artists’.