Skip to main content
Almine Rech

Sam McKinniss

Sam McKinniss (b. 1985, Northfield, Minnesota) is an artist living and working in New York City and Kent, Connecticut. His figurative paintings are most often sourced from popular culture, the entertainment industry, sports, and the internet. He is inspired by narratives focusing on romance, celebrity, tragedy, the inevitable destruction of innocence in contemporary American life. In a 2019 Artforum cover story featuring McKinniss, the novelist and critic Gary Indiana writes, “Sam’s recent paintings suggest a deft, saturnine, facetiously sincere autobiography of taste and tastelessness that reveals less about the artist than the spectator, though in this case, the artist is spectator, too. These paintings…are really unlikely things, samples from the blazing horror vacui we inhabit as alleged global citizens, ergo very familiar, but suffused with pathos, even suffering, as well as flash and comic incongruity.”

Recent institutional group shows include Day for Night: New American Realism at Palazzo Barberini, organized by the Aishti Foundation, Rome (2024); Friends & Lovers at FLAG Art Foundation, New York (2023); Dark Light: Realism in the Age of Post-Truths curated by Massimiliano Gioni at Aishti Foundation, Beirut (2022); and Pictus Porrectus Reconsidering the Full Length Portrait, at the Isaac Bell House in Newport, RI (2022). His work is held in the permanent collections of the Contemporary Art Foundation, Tokyo; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT; Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT; and Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA. 

  • Biography

    read or download

Selected artworks

  • Sam McKinniss,                                      Prince George & Prince William, 2018

    Sam McKinniss Prince George & Prince William, 2018

    Oil over acrylic on canvas
    30 x 24 inches
    76,2 x 61 cm

  • Sam McKinniss,                                      Michael, 2018

    Sam McKinniss Michael, 2018

    Oil over acrylic on canvas
    25,4 x 20,3 x 2,5 cm
    10 x 8 x 1 inches

  • Sam McKinniss,                                      The Little Mermaid, 2018

    Sam McKinniss The Little Mermaid, 2018

    Oil over acrylic on canvas
    45,7 x 35,6 x 2,5 cm
    18 x 14 x 1 inches

  • Sam McKinniss,                                      Marilyn, 2018

    Sam McKinniss Marilyn, 2018

    Oil over acrylic on canvas
    91,4 x 76,2 x 2,5 cm
    36 x 30 x 1 inches

  • Sam McKinniss,                                      Suzie and Kelly, 2019

    Sam McKinniss Suzie and Kelly, 2019

    Oil over acrylic on canvas
    101,6 x 76,2 cm
    40 x 30 in

  • Sam McKinniss,                                      Titanic, 2020

    Sam McKinniss Titanic, 2020

    Oil on linen
    182.9 x 243.8 x 3.8 cm
    72 1/8 x 96 x 1 1/2 in

  • Sam McKinniss,                                      Cop Car in Brooklyn,  2020

    Sam McKinniss Cop Car in Brooklyn, 2020

    Oil on linen
    27.9 x 35.6 cm
    11 x 14 in

  • Sam McKinniss,                                      Lake McDonald, 2021

    Sam McKinniss Lake McDonald, 2021

    Oil and acrylic on linen
    244 x 213.5 cm
    96 x 84 in

  • Sam McKinniss,                                      Lil Nas X with Friends and Cops, 2021

    Sam McKinniss Lil Nas X with Friends and Cops, 2021

    Oil on linen
    182.9 x 121.9 x 3.2 cm
    72 x 48 x 1 1/4 in

  • Sam McKinniss,                                      Lana Del Rey with Fans and Bodyguard, 2021

    Sam McKinniss Lana Del Rey with Fans and Bodyguard, 2021

    Oil on canvas
    101.6 x 76.2 x 2.54 cm
    40 x 30 x 1 in

Museum exhibitions

Selected press