Lorna Simpson facts for kids

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Quick facts for kids Lorna Simpson
Simpson in April 2009
Born	Lorna Simpson (1960-08-13) 13 August 1960 (age 64) Brooklyn, New York
Nationality	American
Education	University of California-San Diego, MFA, 1985; School of Visual Arts, New York City, BFA, 1983
Known for	Photography, Film, Video
Movement	Conceptual photography
Awards	2010 ICP Infinity Award in Art, International Center of Photography, New York City; 2019 J. Paul Getty Medal

Lorna Simpson (born August 13, 1960) is an American photographer and multimedia artist. Her amazing artworks have been shown all over the world. In 1990, she made history as one of the first African-American women to show her art at the Venice Biennale.

Simpson became famous in the 1980s and 1990s. She created special art pieces that mixed photos with text. These works, like Guarded Conditions and Square Deal, made people think about identity, gender, race, and history. Today, Simpson still explores these important ideas. She uses photography, film, video, painting, drawing, and sculpture in her art.

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Early Life and Art Beginnings

Lorna Simpson was born on August 13, 1960. She grew up in Brooklyn, New York, in a neighborhood called Crown Heights. She went to the High School of Art and Design. Her parents, who were from Jamaica-Cuba and African-American backgrounds, moved to New York. They often took her to plays, museums, concerts, and dance shows. During summer breaks, Simpson took art classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. She visited her grandmother there.

Education and Developing Her Style

Before getting her first art degree, Simpson traveled a lot. She visited Europe, Africa, and different parts of the United States. During her travels, she practiced documentary photography. This means taking photos of real life and events. She realized she wanted her art to do more than just show things. She wanted it to make viewers think and feel. This led her to explore graphic design too.

Simpson later studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting in 1982. While studying, she also worked at the Studio Museum in Harlem. There, she learned from artists like David Hammons.

She continued her studies at the University of California at San Diego. She earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in visual arts in 1985. Her art education mixed photography with Conceptual art. Her teachers included famous artists like Allan Kaprow and Eleanor Antin. This is where she developed her unique "photo-text" style. In these works, Simpson added text to studio-like portraits. This gave her art a deeper meaning. She wondered if documentary photos were truly factual. She questioned if they were just one person's view of the truth. Her art often looked at and questioned stereotypes about African-American women in American culture.

A Growing Career in Art

In 1985, Simpson received a special award called the National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Then, in 1990, she became one of the first African-American women to show her art at the Venice Biennale. This is a very important art exhibition. She was also the first African-American woman to have her own show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

In 1990, Simpson had solo exhibitions at several big museums. These included the Denver Art Museum and the Portland Art Museum. Her work was also part of a major exhibition called The Decade Show.

Simpson continued to receive awards and recognition. In 1997, she got a grant from the Wexner Center for the Arts. In 2001, she won the Whitney Museum of Art Award. In 2007, the Whitney Museum of American Art held a big show of her work. It looked back at 20 years of her art.

In 2013, her first European show opened in Paris. It then traveled to Germany, England, and Massachusetts. Simpson is one of the few African-American artists to show her work at the Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning.

In 2015, she showed her paintings for the first time at the Venice Biennale. She also created the album cover for the rapper Common's album Black America Again in 2016. In 2017, she photographed 18 creative women for Vogue Magazine. She was inspired by their strength, saying, "They don't take no for an answer."

Simpson's art is also featured in important exhibitions today. These include the Before Yesterday We Could Fly exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her work was also in the 2022 Women Painting Women show.

Lorna Simpson started as a conceptual photographer. But she has since explored video, drawing, painting, and film. She wants to keep inspiring black artists. She believes in doing what she loves. She says, "I've always done exactly what I wanted to do... I just stuck to that principle and I'm a much happier person as a result."

Exploring Her Artworks

Simpson's art often features black women combined with text. In many of her early pieces, the faces of the people are hidden. This makes it harder for viewers to connect with them directly. It also challenges how people usually look at portraits of black subjects. These hidden figures make viewers think about how we see and understand photos. By using the same portrait many times with text, Simpson's "anti-portraits" make us think about how black bodies are seen in culture.

Simpson started working with film in 1997. She was always interested in how films build stories through sequences.

Lorna Simpson, Untitled (2 Necklines), 1989. This piece uses two photos and 11 engraved plastic plaques. It is at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC.

Her 1989 work, Necklines, shows two identical photos of a black woman's mouth, chin, neck, and collar bone.

Another work from 1989 is Easy for Who to Say. It shows five identical outlines of black women from the shoulders up. Their faces are covered by white ovals with letters inside: A, E, I, O, U. Underneath are the words: Amnesia, Error, Indifference, Omission, Uncivil. This artwork hints at how race was shown in old films. It also talks about how the history of people of color was often ignored. The letters covering the faces suggest that the women's thoughts are stopped by these harsh words.

In Guarded Conditions (1989), Simpson used Polaroid pictures of a female model. The body is shown from behind, with the back of her head. This suggests a feeling of being guarded. The artwork also brings up ideas about African-American hairstyles. The text and images together create a sense of being vulnerable. The poses are slightly different, showing the model's changing feelings. By breaking the body into pieces, Simpson makes us think about how black female bodies have been used and seen throughout history. Many people connect this work to slave auctions.

Simpson also explored the complex relationship African-American women have with their natural hair. She did this in her 1994 work, Wigs. This piece shows photos of different wigs, like afros, braids, and blonde hair. They are printed on felt and arranged like scientific samples. There are no people in the photos. Simpson said she wanted to talk about the presence of people without actually showing them. The Museum of Modern Art says this work has social and political meanings. It makes viewers question beauty standards in society.

Lorna Simpson, Twenty Questions, (A Sampler), 1986. This piece has 4 photographs and 6 engraved plastic plaques.

In her 2003 video art piece, Corridor, Simpson shows two women side-by-side. One is a household servant from 1860, and the other is a rich homeowner from 1960. Both women are played by the artist Wangechi Mutu. This allows viewers to see how their lives were similar and different. Music helps to blend the two time periods visually. Simpson uses "open-ended stories" in her art. This means she hints at things without telling the whole story. In Corridor, "nothing really happens," but it makes you ask, "what's missing?" and "what's trying to be shown?" These questions help viewers imagine the lives of these people during important political times. This helps us connect the past to our own political world. Corridor looks at race, class, and American identity. Simpson says she doesn't appear in her own work. But she uses parts of her own experiences to help her art speak about identity.

In 2009, Simpson started a series called 1957–2009. In this series, she took old photos of young African-American women from 1957. Then, she took new photos of herself in the same poses, clothes, and backgrounds. This way, she showed how beauty ideals in the 1950s often left out black women.

Simpson's newer works use old photos and images from magazines. She layers black and white images with text. She also uses screen printing and colored inks. Natural things, especially ice, often appear in these works. Glass blocks that look like ice are also in her sculptures. Simpson's new art continues to challenge stereotypes about race and gender.

Artists like David Hammons and Adrian Piper have influenced Simpson's work. Writers like Langston Hughes and Toni Morrison have also inspired her.

Personal Life

From 2007 to 2018, Lorna Simpson was married to artist James Casebere. They have a daughter named Zora Casebere, who is also an artist.

Simpson and Casebere shared a four-story art studio for many years. In 2018, Simpson moved into a new studio at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Awards and Recognition

1985 – National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, United States
1987 – Workspace Grant, Jamaica Arts Center
1989 – Artists Space board of directors, New York, NY
1990 – Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, New York, NY
1994 – Artist Award for a Distinguished Body of Work, College Art Association, New York, NY
1997 – Artist-in-Residence Grant, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH
1998 – Finalist, Hugo Boss Prize 1998, Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation, New York, NY
2001 – Whitney Museum of American Art Award, sponsored by Cartier and the Cartier Foundation for Contemporary Art, New York, NY
2003 – Distinguished Artist-In-Residence, Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation, Colgate University, Hamilton, NY
2014 – Shortlisted, Deutsche Börse Photography Prize
2018 – SMFA Medal Award, School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts Awardee, Boston, MA
2019 – Winner, J. Paul Getty Medal (along with Mary Beard and Ed Ruscha)

List of Works

Stereo Styles. 1988. Ten instant film pictures on engraved plastic.
ID. 1990. At the Pérez Art Museum Miami.
Back. 1991. Two color Polaroids and three plastic plaques.
Counting. 1991. Photogravure and screenprint. At the Minneapolis Institute of Art.
Five Day Forecast. 1991. Five photographs and 15 engraved plaques. At the Tate Modern, London.
Untitled (What should fit here...). 1993. Photo-etching, screenprint, and hand-applied watercolor. At the Minneapolis Institute of Art.
lll (Three Wishbones in a Wood Box). 1994. Wooden box with three wishbones made of ceramic, rubber, and bronze. At the Minneapolis Institute of Art.
The Waterbearer. 1996. Silver print.
Still. 1997. At the Pérez Art Museum Miami.
Wigs (Portfolio). 1994. A collection of twenty-one lithographs on felt. At the Museum of Modern Art, New York City.
Gestures/Reenactments. 1985. Six photographs of a black man in white clothes, with text captions.