Artist
Mickalene Thomas(American, born 1971)American, born 1971
CultureAmerican
Titles
- Lovely Six Foota
Date2007
MediumChromogenic print
DimensionsImage: 48 1/8 × 59 3/8 in. (122.2 × 150.8 cm)
Frame: 58 7/8 × 69 7/8 × 1 15/16 in. (149.5 × 177.5 × 5 cm)
Frame: 58 7/8 × 69 7/8 × 1 15/16 in. (149.5 × 177.5 × 5 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Clare Glassell, Bettie Cartwright, the Meyer Levy Charitable Foundation, Jereann Chaney, and Bill and Sara Morgan in honor of Yasufumi Nakamori
Object number2016.201
Not on view
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Department
PhotographySpecial Collections
Object Type
Mickalene Thomas’s
tableau of animal prints, boldly colored fabrics, and period furniture blends
her childhood memories with the visual vocabulary of the 1970s Black is
Beautiful movement—an aesthetic commodified and stereotyped by blaxploitation
films. Thomas blends these varied inspirations to broaden and reinterpret any
singular definition of Blackness. At the center of the image, a model stares
daringly at the viewer, demanding recognition and blurring the line between
truth and fiction, past and present. Thomas declares, “My work celebrates and
represents all types of powerful beautiful black women, period.”
ProvenanceThe artist; [consigned to Caren Golden Fine Art Gallery, New York, 2007]; [consigned to Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, 2010]; [consigned to Lehman Maupin Gallery, New York, 2011]; private collection (remained at Lehman Maupin Gallery, New York); [Lehman Maupin Gallery, New York]; purchased by MFAH, 2016.
Exhibition History"My Love is a 187," Luggage Store Gallery, San Francisco, February 9–March 24, 2007.
"Prime Time," Caren Golden Fine Art Gallery, New York, April 5–May 12, 2007.
"Melodymania," RH Gallery, New York, September 13–October 29, 2011.
“Room In My Head: Staging Psychological Spaces," Gutstein Gallery, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Georgia, July 17–October 5, 2012.
"Statements: African American Art from the Museum's Collection," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Millennium Gallery, May 23–September 25, 2016.
Cataloguing data may change with further research.
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