The superstar has collected contemporary art for most of his adult life, but his passion is for preserving the work of Black artists. He recalls commissioning his first piece of art at 21 from street artist and muralist Retna. From there, he started visiting museums and studying the art hung on the walls of the luxury hotels he frequented. “That’s when my lens changed, that’s when my creative eye opened, [and] that’s when I started to be more experimental with my music,” he says.
In the living room, Usher reinvented a mundane item—a plastic-covered sofa—transforming it from the pristine, off-limits furniture once revered by Black elders like his mom to an inviting, multigenerational conversation starter. “This is my art,” he says of the custom sofa created with the help of the Atlanta-based Bjork Studio. Yes, it makes the classic crunchy sound when you sit down.
In daughter Sovereign’s room, the ceiling mural by Morgan Boszilkov is based on Sovereign’s own drawings. Custom bed curtained with a Dedar wool with Samuel & Sons trimmings; floral rug by RAG.
ART: Veronica Dorsett / The Current Gallery. Yoshitomo Nara / Yoshitomo Nara Foundation.
Looking into Jennifer’s closet, which features custom shelving lined with a Dedar Velvet and pendants by Lostine. An ottoman by BG Robinson is cushioned in a leopard print silk velvet by Scalamandré. Rug by the Rug Company.
A corner of the Entrance hall features an artwork by Eli Reed, a CH Sconce from JCRD Design, and an Eelko Moorer love seat.
ART: Eli Reed
In the primary bedroom, a painting by Rashid Johnson hangs on a wall curtained in Coraggio’s Gramercy Park in Oyster. A sculptural walnut burl floor lamp with hand-blown glass shade by Aaron Poritz stands in the corner.
Usher’s Apollo Theater award is displayed among other objects, including a Christopher Russell vase (top), on shelves in the living room.
A Christopher Russell vase and other objects in the family room.
Across the hall, in a lavender family room, a vintage TV installation by Jennifer stands in a corner playing hazy family videos and iconic cultural moments such as James Brown’s famously bizarre 1988 CNN interview on a loop. Acrylic-painted art by Rick Lowe hangs above a custom plum-colored velvet sectional, stretching beyond the wall molding. “Creatively, they say, you don’t color over the lines,” Usher says. “Well, we do here.”
For all the lauded and emerging artists on display in every room—from Romare Bearden and Julian Schnabel to Rashid Johnson, Lauren Halsey, and Tyler Mitchell—Usher didn’t want the home to feel like a museum. “It’s not like the most expensive piece wins the best wall. That’s not the case in this house,” he says.
Usher, wearing a Ralph Lauren Purple Label suit and shirt, Maison Margiela shoes, Gucci sunglasses, a Jaeger-LeCoultre watch, Briony Raymond earrings, and Tiffany & Co. brooches, with his wife, Jennifer, in Balenciaga, in front of Yoshitomo Nara’s Peace Head in the garden.
Hair: Jody Rowlands; Makeup: Lola Okanlawon; ART: Yoshitomo Nara / Yoshitomo Nara Foundation.
The breakfast room centers on a custom lava stone–topped table designed by Lola Montes Schnabel on a hammered-steel base. Fertility Form light fixture by Rogan Gregory for R & Company; dining chairs from Just One Eye; walls clad in an Élitis abaca, and the ceiling is covered in House of Hackney’s HEDERA.