Lorna Simpson facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Lorna Simpson
Simpson in April 2009
Born	Lorna Simpson (1960-08-13) 13 August 1960 (age 65) Brooklyn, New York
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 a famous American artist. She uses many different art forms, like photography, film, and painting. Her amazing works 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. This is a very important international art exhibition.

Simpson became well-known in the 1980s and 1990s. She created art that combined photos with text. These artworks, like Guarded Conditions, made people think about identity, gender, race, and history. Today, Simpson continues to explore these big ideas. She uses photography, film, video, painting, drawing, and sculpture in her art.

Lorna Simpson's Early Life

Lorna Simpson was born on August 13, 1960. She grew up in New York City, in Queens and Brooklyn. Her parents loved art and culture. They often took her to plays, museums, concerts, and dance shows. This helped her discover her own love for art.

Simpson went to the High School of Art and Design. She also took summer classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. This was when she visited her grandmother.

Her Journey in Art Education

Before college, Simpson traveled through Europe, Africa, and the United States. She took many documentary photos during this time. This helped her improve her photography skills.

Simpson then studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting in 1982. While there, she worked at the Studio Museum in Harlem. She learned a lot from artist David Hammons.

Simpson continued her studies at the University of California at San Diego. She earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in 1985. She focused on photography and conceptual art. Her teachers included famous artists and filmmakers. Here, she developed her unique style. She started combining text with studio portraits. She also explored how African-American women were often shown in American culture.

Lorna Simpson's Artistic Career

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 exhibit at the Venice Biennale. This was a huge achievement. She was also the first African-American woman to have her own show at the Museum of Modern Art.

In 1990, Simpson's art was shown in solo exhibitions at several big museums. These included the Denver Art Museum and the Museum of Modern Art. Her work was also part of a group exhibition called The Decade Show.

In 1997, Simpson received a grant from the Wexner Center for the Arts. She showed her photography works there. In 2001, she won the Whitney Museum of Art Award. Later, in 2007, the Whitney Museum of American Art held a special exhibition. It looked back at 20 years of her amazing work.

Simpson's first European exhibition opened in Paris in 2013. It then traveled to Germany, England, and Massachusetts. She is one of a few African-American artists to show art at the Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning.

In 2015, she showed her paintings for the first time at the 56th Venice Biennale. She also had a showing at the Salon 94 Bowery.

In 2016, Simpson created the album artwork for Black America Again by the rapper Common. That same year, she was featured in a book called In the Company of Women. In 2017, Vogue Magazine showed her portraits of 18 creative women. These women, like Teresita Fernández and Jacqueline Woodson, make art central to their lives. Simpson admired their strength, saying, "They don't take no for an answer."

Simpson's art is part of the Before Yesterday We Could Fly exhibition. This is an Afrofuturist Period Room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her work was also in the 2022 exhibition Women Painting Women. This show was at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

Simpson started her career as a conceptual photographer. But she has explored many other art forms since then. These include video, installations, drawing, painting, and film. She wants to keep inspiring black artists. She talks with artists and activists. Simpson once said, "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."

In 2025, the Metropolitan Museum exhibited her paintings in "Lorna Simpson: Source Notes."

Exploring Lorna Simpson's Artworks

Simpson's art often shows black women combined with text. This helps us think about how society views race and identity today. In her early photos, people's faces are often hidden or turned away. This makes viewers focus on other parts of the image. It also makes us think about how we usually look at photos of people. Her unique "anti-portraits" use repeated images and text. They make us question how black people have been shown in art and society.

Simpson started working with film in 1997 with Call Waiting. She has always been interested in how films build stories.

Lorna Simpson, Untitled (2 Necklines), 1989,
2 gelatin silver prints and 11 engraved plastic plaques, 40 x 100 in.,
National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

Simpson's 1989 work, Necklines, shows two identical photos. They show a black woman's mouth, chin, neck, and collar bone. White words on black plaques, like "ring" and "noose," create a feeling of being trapped or in danger. The final red text, "feel the ground sliding from under you," adds to this sense of unease. Yet, the images themselves look calm and elegant.

Easy for Who to Say, from 1989, shows five identical outlines of black women. 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 makes us think about how people of color have been shown in movies. It also makes us consider how their history has sometimes been forgotten.

In Simpson's 1989 work Guarded Conditions, she used Polaroid images of a female model. The body is shown in pieces, viewed from behind. The back of the model's head looks guarded. The artwork also brings in ideas about African-American hairstyles. The text and images together create a feeling of vulnerability. The poses are very similar, with small changes in hands or feet. This artwork shows the body in pieces, making us think about how black women's bodies have been viewed and treated throughout history. It challenges the idea of seeing people as objects instead of unique individuals.

Simpson explored the complex relationship African American women have with their natural hair in Wigs (1994). This work shows photos of different wigs, like afros and braids. They are printed on felt and arranged like scientific samples. There are no people in the photos. Simpson explained that she wanted to talk about people's presence without showing them directly. This artwork makes us think about beauty standards in society. It asks us to question why certain hairstyles are considered beautiful and how these ideas are spread.

Lorna Simpson, Twenty Questions, (A Sampler), 1986, 4 photographs, gelatin silver prints on paper and 6 engraved plastic plaques.

In her 2003 video art piece, Corridor, Simpson shows two women side-by-side. One is a household worker from 1860, and the other is a wealthy homeowner from 1960. Both women are played by artist Wangechi Mutu. This helps us see interesting connections between them. Music helps create a special mood. Simpson uses "open-ended narratives" in her art. This means she hints at things without telling a full story. In Corridor, "nothing really happens, it's just a woman going kind of day-to-day." This makes viewers wonder what is missing and what the art is trying to say. These questions help us imagine the lives of these people in important historical times. Viewers can think about the political times shown and connect them to today's world. Corridor also looks at identity, the past, and its effect on the present. Simpson explores race and class in America. She once said, "I do not appear in any of my work. I think maybe there are elements to it... from my own personal experience, but that... is not so important as what the work is trying to say about... identity."

In 2009, Simpson started including self-portraits in her art with the series 1957–2009. She put old photos of young African American women from 1957 next to her own photos. In her photos, she copied the model's pose, clothes, and background. This showed how beauty standards in the 1950s often left out black women.

Simpson's newer works use old photos and images from magazines. These black and white images often have text layered on them. They are printed on plexiglass and colored with bright inks. Natural elements, like ice, often appear in these works. Glass blocks that look like ice also appear in her sculptures. Her newer art still uses different styles to challenge old ideas about race and gender.

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

Simpson's work was included in the 2025 exhibition Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985 at the National Gallery of Art.

Lorna Simpson's Personal Life

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

Simpson and Casebere shared a studio in Brooklyn from 2009 to 2018. 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 placed on engraved plastic.
• ID. 1990. Pérez Art Museum Miami.
• Back. 1991. Two color Polaroids and three plastic plaques.
• Counting. 1991. Photogravure and screenprint. Minneapolis Institute of Art.
• Five Day Forecast. 1991. Five photographs, gelatin silver print on paper and 15 engraved plaques. Tate Modern, London.
• Untitled (What should fit here...). 1993. Photo-etching, screenprint and hand-applied watercolor. Minneapolis Institute of Art.
• lll (Three Wishbones in a Wood Box). 1994. Wooden box containing three wishbones made of ceramic, rubber and bronze. Minneapolis Institute of Art.
• The Waterbearer. 1996. Silver print.
• Still. 1997. Pérez Art Museum Miami
• Wigs (Portfolio). 1994. Portfolio of twenty-one lithographs on felt with seventeen lithographed felt text panels. Museum of Modern Art, New York City.
• Gestures/Reenactments. 1985. Six photographs of a black man in white clothes, with text captions underneath.

See also

In Spanish: Lorna Simpson para niños