Derek Fordjour (b. 1974, Memphis, Tennessee)
Derek Fordjour is the recipient of the 2025 Gordon Parks Foundation Artist Fellowship, the 2023 St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital Spirit of the Dream Award, and previously served as the Alex Katz Chair at Cooper Union. He has received public commissions for the High Line, the NYC AIDS Memorial, MOCA Grand Avenue and the MTA’s Arts & Design program. Fordjour’s work has been reviewed in The New York Times,Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Los Angeles Times. A monograph of his work will be published by Phaidon in 2027.
He is a graduate of Morehouse College in Atlanta Georgia. He also earned a Master’s Degree in Art Education from Harvard University and an MFA in painting from Hunter College. His work is held in the private and public collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Guggenheim Museum, and The Royal Collection in London among others. He is the founder of Contemporary Arts Memphis.
“The process of painting is at once humble and intricate; he covers a canvas or wood board with cardboard tiles, foil and other materials, and wraps it in newspaper (always The Financial Times, for its warm, salmon hue). The process repeats several times, with Mr. Fordjour applying washes of paint, then tearing and carving the accumulating surface as he goes.”
—Siddhartha Mitter, “Derek Fordjour, From Anguish to Transcendence,” The New York Times, November 19, 2020
1974 Born in Memphis, Tenneses
2001 Graduates Morehouse College, B.A
2013 Solo exhibition Built Environment: Inaugurations with Felandus Thames, Columbia University Russ Barrie Pavillion, New York
2015 Solo exhibition UPPER ROOM, Robert Blumenthal Gallery, New York
2016 Graduates Hunter College, M.F.A
2017 Awarded C-12 Emerging Artist Awarded, Hunter College, New York
Solo exhibition PARADE, Sugar Hill Museum, New York
2016 Solo exhibition Angency and Regulation, LUCE Gallery, Turin
2018 Commissioned for MTA Arts and Design Permanent Installation, 145th Street 3 Train Line, New York
Commissioned for Half Mast, public installation at the Whitney Museum, New York
2019 Participates in Plumb Line: Charles White and the Contemporary, California African American Museum, Los Angeles
2020 Solo exhibition SHELTER, Contemporary Art Museum of St. Louis, St Louis
2021 Solo exhibition Gestalt, Pond Society, Shanghai
Participates in The Worlds We Make: Selections from the ICA Collection, ICA Boston, MA
2023 Solo exhibition SCORE, Petzel, New York
Commissioned for Forjour x 2023 TSU Mural Exhibit, presented by the First Art Museum, Nashville
2025 Solo exhibition Nightsong, David Kordansky Gallery, Los Angeles
Commissioned for High Line Art mural, New York
Participates in Flight into Egypt: Black Artists and Ancient Egypt, 1876 - now, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
2026 Commissioned for National Civil Rights Museum artwork, Memphis (forthcoming)
Derek Fordjour: Sonic Boom. Installation view. Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. March 28, 2022 - ongoing.
Derek Fordjour: Sonic Boom. Installation view. Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. March 28, 2022 - ongoing.
Derek Fordjour: Sonic Boom. Installation view. Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles. March 28, 2022 - ongoing.
Derek Fordjour: Gestalt. Installation view. Pond Society, Shanghai. May 15 - July 2, 2021.
Derek Fordjour: Gestalt. Installation view. Pond Society, Shanghai. May 15 - July 2, 2021.
Derek Fordjour: Gestalt. Installation view. Pond Society, Shanghai. May 15 - July 2, 2021.
Derek Fordjour: SHELTER. Installation view. Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Missouri. January 17 - August 23, 2020.
Derek Fordjour: SHELTER. Installation view. Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Missouri. January 17 - August 23, 2020.
Derek Fordjour: SHELTER. Installation view. Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Missouri. January 17 - August 23, 2020.
Derek Fordjour: SHELTER. Installation view. Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, Missouri. January 17 - August 23, 2020.
Derek Fordjour: Half Mast. Whitney Museum, New York. Installation view, September 24, 2018 – May 5, 2019.
Derek Fordjour: Half Mast. Whitney Museum, New York. Installation view, September 24, 2018 – May 5, 2019.
Derek Fordjour: PARADE. Installation view, 2018. 145 Street, 3 Train Station, New York. Commissioned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New York.
Derek Fordjour: PARADE. Installation view, 2018. 145 Street, 3 Train Station, New York. Commissioned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New York.
Derek Fordjour: PARADE. Installation view, 2018. 145 Street, 3 Train Station, New York. Commissioned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, New York.
