Mickalene Thomas facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Mickalene Thomas
Thomas speaking April 2017 at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
Born	(1971-01-28) January 28, 1971 (age 55) Camden, New Jersey, U.S.
Education	Pratt Institute, Southern Cross University, Yale University
Known for	painting, photography, collage, sculpture, printmaking, video art and installation art

Mickalene Thomas (born January 28, 1971) is an American contemporary visual artist. She is well-known for her detailed paintings that use rhinestones, acrylic paint, and enamel. Thomas creates collage art inspired by many art styles and movements. These include Impressionism, Cubism, Dada, and the Harlem Renaissance. Her art explores ideas about what it means to be a woman, beauty, and identity.

Mickalene Thomas's Early Life and Education

Mickalene Thomas was born on January 28, 1971, in Camden, New Jersey. She grew up in Hillside and East Orange. Her mother, Sandra "Mama Bush" Bush, was a model in the 1970s. She introduced Mickalene and her brother to art. They attended after-school programs at the Newark Museum and the Henry Street Settlement in New York. Thomas's mother raised her and her brother as Buddhists. As a teenager, Mickalene and her mother had a close but sometimes difficult relationship. Mickalene later explored this connection in her short film Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman: A Portrait of My Mother.

Thomas lived and went to school in Portland, Oregon, from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. She studied pre-law and Theater Arts. Thomas earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) from Pratt Institute in 2000. She then received her Master of Fine Arts (MFA) from Yale School of Art in 2002. Thomas also took part in artist residency programs. These included the Studio Museum in Harlem in New York and the Versailles Foundation Munn Artists Program in Giverny, France. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Artworks, Style, and Inspirations

In her early career, Mickalene Thomas was part of a growing community of independent artists and musicians. This led her to create her own art. She has said that fashion was always a source of inspiration for her. She was influenced by artists like Jacob Lawrence, William H. Johnson, and Romare Bearden. A major influence was the work of Carrie Mae Weems, especially her Kitchen Table series. Thomas saw Weems' work at the Portland Art Museum in 1994. She described it as the first time she saw art by an African-American female artist that reflected her own experiences and family life. This experience helped Thomas decide to study art at Pratt Institute. Faith Ringgold also greatly influenced Thomas's artistic path.

Thomas's art often shows African-American women. She explores ideas of fame and identity. Her work celebrates black femininity and strength. Her paintings and collages show women in confident poses. They are surrounded by colorful patterns inspired by her childhood. An example is Left Behind 2 Again from 2012, which is in the Honolulu Museum of Art. Her subjects often include famous women like Eartha Kitt, Whitney Houston, Oprah Winfrey, and Condoleezza Rice. Her portrait of Michelle Obama was the first individual portrait of the First Lady. It was shown in the National Portrait Gallery's Americans Now exhibition.

In her 2017 exhibition "Mentors, Muses, and Celebrities" at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (CAM), Thomas created multi-media art. These installations focused on black women telling their own stories. Art critic Rikki Byrd noted that Thomas shows black women as mentors, muses, and heroes. This helps to change old, unfair stories about them.

Thomas has spent many years studying art history, portrait painting, landscape painting, and still life. This knowledge shapes her work. She gets ideas from many art periods and cultures. These include early modern artists like Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, and Édouard Manet. She also draws inspiration from more recent artists like Romare Bearden and Pam Grier. She uses classic poses and abstract backgrounds from these artists. This helps her give power back to women who were often shown as objects in art.

Thomas is known for her detailed mixed-media paintings. She uses rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel. These works show a "complex vision of what it means to be a woman." They also expand common ideas of beauty. Rhinestones add extra meaning and can represent something artificial or glamorous. They highlight parts of each painting. They also make us think about what is considered feminine and what defines a woman, especially black women. The Financial Times said that Thomas's art is about making herself and other women of color visible. She does this by placing her muses in famous poses and settings from art history.

Thomas almost always features women of color in her art. This is a way to show and empower these women. It celebrates their culture and beauty. Sometimes she puts them into famous Western paintings. As part of the Post-Black Art movement, Thomas's work redefines how we see race, identity, and beauty. Her art blurs the lines between real and imaginary. Her subjects often look directly at the viewer. This challenges the traditional way women have been viewed in art. This confident look shows that the models are comfortable with themselves. It challenges the idea of women as silent objects. Small choices, like not straightening the figures' hair, encourage women of color to accept themselves as they are. They don't have to fit into society's ideas of beauty.

Thomas has also worked with the fashion house Dior many times. She designed handbags and her own version of the classic Dior Bar Jacket.

Thomas's work was part of the 2022 exhibition Women Painting Women at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth.

Famous Painting: Le Déjeuner Sur l'Herbe

Le déjeuner sur l'herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires is a painting by Mickalene Thomas. Its title means "The luncheon on the grass: The Three Black Women" in French. This painting is a modern version of Édouard Manet's 1863 painting, Le dejeuner sur l'herbe. Thomas's artwork shows three black women. They wear rich colors, vintage patterned clothes, and have radiant Afro-styled hair. Their positions are similar to Manet's subjects. However, all three women in Thomas's painting look directly at the viewer. Thomas created this painting, her largest at the time, in 2010. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City asked her to create it for their restaurant's window.

What the Painting Shows

Le déjeuner sur l'herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires was made in three steps. First, Thomas photographed three models in the sculpture garden of the MoMA. This made the piece specific to that location. Next, Thomas made a collage using the photograph as a base. She added other elements to it. This collage is now in the lobby of the P.S.1, an extension of the MoMA. The third version was a painting based on the original photograph. It was made of collage-like painted parts on wood panels. She used acrylic, oil, enamel, and rhinestones.

The painting is 10 feet tall and 24 feet wide. Thomas said she chose this huge size to "take up space" in places often dominated by white male artists. The painting was first displayed in the window of The Modern, MoMA's restaurant. People on the street could see it at any time. This made Le déjeuner sur l'herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires Thomas's most public artwork yet.

The painting's subjects are three women of color. They are decorated with rhinestones and richly dressed. The models in the original photograph are all friends of Thomas. This is common in many of her photographs. All three women wear richly patterned dresses designed by Thomas. They sit on fabrics arranged by the artist. Many vintage patterns are used in the artwork. Thomas says these mixed patterns show "all the different things we are as Americans." Behind the women in both the photograph and painting is a Matisse sculpture. It was placed behind them in the sculpture garden.

Artistic Inspirations

Le déjeuner sur l'herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires is clearly based on Édouard Manet's 1863 painting Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe. Manet's piece caused a lot of discussion when it was made.

In Thomas's painting, the three main subjects are all women of color. They are clothed in colorful dresses with patterns from the 1970s. All three women look directly at the viewer. The woman in the background of Manet's scene is replaced by a Matisse sculpture in Thomas's piece. Thomas placed her models in front of this sculpture in the MoMA sculpture garden. Using Matisse's sculpture is not unusual for Thomas. She often includes references to the famous artist in her works. Thomas has also mentioned Romare Bearden as an influence. Besides these clear references, Le déjeuner sur l'herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires and many of Thomas's other works are inspired by Dada, cubism, and the Harlem Renaissance.

Exhibition: Portrait of an Unlikely Space

Portrait of an Unlikely Space was an exhibition co-organized by Mickalene Thomas. It was shown at the Yale University Art Gallery from September 8, 2023, to January 7, 2024. This multi-gallery installation showed home settings. These settings reminded visitors of a time in U.S. history not often seen in her art: the era before slavery was abolished. The exhibition featured early American portraits of Black women, men, and children. These included tiny paintings, daguerreotypes (early photographs), and silhouettes. They were displayed on walls, in cases, and on furniture. Alongside these small items, artworks by Thomas and other modern artists were placed in a home-like environment.

Exhibition: All About Love

In 2025, Thomas's exhibition titled All About Love began to travel to different locations. It started at The Broad in Los Angeles. Then it traveled to the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. It ended at the Hayward Gallery in London. The exhibition also traveled to Les Abattoirs, a museum in Toulouse.

Film, Music, and Video Art

Besides her paintings, Mickalene Thomas also works with photography, collage, printmaking, video art, sculpture, and installation art. Her works, like the Odalisque series (2007), explore the relationship between the artist and the model. She reinterprets themes and symbols that have a long history in Western art. For example, she references the "odalisque" style, which shows women in exotic settings. In 2012, Mickalene Thomas: Origin of the Universe was her first major solo museum exhibition. It opened at the Santa Monica Museum of Art and later moved to the Brooklyn Museum. This show's title refers to Gustave Courbet's 1866 painting L'Origine du monde. It featured many recent portraits, landscapes, and interior scenes.

Thomas has worked with musician Solange. She created the cover art for Solange's 2013 EP True. The cover started as a portrait of Solange that the artist commissioned. Thomas and Solange also worked together on a trailer for the music video for the song "Losing You."

Her short film Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman was made for her exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum. It is about Sandra Bush, her mother and long-time inspiration. In the film, Sandra talks about careers, relationships, and beauty. The film first aired on HBO on February 24, 2014, and has been shown regularly since.

Commissions and Collaborations

In 2019, Rolls-Royce auctioned a custom-designed Phantom luxury car at Sotheby's. The money raised went to (RED), a charity working to end AIDS worldwide. The winning bidder could have the car decorated with a unique design by Thomas.

In 2020, Thomas designed a version of Dior's famous 1947 bar jacket. This was for a cruise collection fashion show held in Marrakesh.

For Dior's haute couture show at the Musée Rodin in January 2023, the brand's creative director, Maria Grazia Chiuri, asked Thomas to create the stage design. This design was the backdrop for the show. On the walls around the runway, Thomas placed collaged black and white images. These images showed 13 Black and mixed-race female performers. They included Josephine Baker, Diahann Carroll, Marpessa Dawn, Lena Horne, and Nina Simone. Pink and yellow shapes were placed over their images. The designs also featured embroidered details made by artisans in Mumbai.

Awards and Recognitions

Mickalene Thomas has received many awards and grants. Some of these include the BOMB Magazine Honor (2015), the MoCADA Artistic Advocacy Award (2015), and the Anonymous Was A Woman Grant (2013). She also won the Audience Award for Favorite Short at the Second Annual Black Star Film Festival (2013). Other awards include the Brooklyn Museum Asher B. Durand Award (2012) and the Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant (2009).

Thomas has also been an artist-in-residence at several places. These include the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine (2013) and the Versailles Foundation Munn Artists Program in France (2011). She also spent time at the Studio Museum in Harlem in New York (2003) and the Vermont Studio Center in Vermont (2001).

Notable Works in Public Collections

See also

In Spanish: Mickalene Thomas para niños