Black Women occupied such a fraught place in American society that Malcolm X's words from 1962 sadly still ring true today. He said, quote, "The most disrespected person in America is the Black woman." Well, challenging the negative perceptions that undergird that disrespect has been the focus of many an artist for decades, and today we're turning the spotlight on one of them. Mickalene Thomas has been called an "artist for the ages" with her work celebrating the beauty of Black women featured in exhibitions around the world.
MS. THOMAS: Thank you. Welcome. Thanks for having me.
MS. THOMAS: I'm very excited.
MR. CAPEHART: So, you know, I didn't realize--in the opening montage, we showed a lot of your work, and I didn't realize you were the creator of one of my favorite pieces of art in the Smithsonian, the reclining Black woman with the glittery red shoes and the lips.
MS. THOMAS: Portrait of Mnonja. Portrait of Mnonja. Yes. I love--that's a--that's a fantastic painting. [Laughs]
MR. CAPEHART: It really is. So you know what? In a profile last year, my colleague, Robin Givhan, wrote that you depict--and this is a quote from her--Black women in repose, Black women indulging in the luxury of self-assurance, Black women existing in a world of their own creation, just as the Black women in the painting, we were just--in the work we were just talking about. How did Black women become your muse?
MS. THOMAS: I think that's a very important question when you're thinking about the trajectory of my work and where I've come from and where I am today. I--you know, I think it has a lot to do with my personal life and my relationship with the women in my life, specifically my mother, my grandmother, my aunties, my cousins, you know, friends, frenemies, just Black women in general--
MS. THOMAS: --celebrities, mentors, people that I look through and seen and, you know, sort of printed matter and also on, you know, television that look like me and recognizing and seeing that even though we have persevered and sort of made some incredible contributions to our society, that we're still, you know, looked at and considered, you know, as the lowest on sort of the barometer, and, you know--and that is testament as we just all witnessed recently with Angel C. Reese. You know what I mean? Like, it just--it never ends. As soon as you think that you have come through some hurdles and that you have reached a platform, you're constantly reminded on a day-to-day basis that--where your place is. They're constantly moving the goalposts and letting--to let you know this is actually where you belong.
And so, for me as an artist, I think I have a great opportunity as an artist who had some great privilege of going to an incredible Ivy League school like Yale University School of Art to use my voice and my creativity as a vehicle for impact, a vehicle for change, a vehicle for inspiration, so that my young year-old self as the eight-year-old person I once were--or my daughter who's ten or all the other young girls, when they see certain images in the world and relationship to--are juxtaposed or in conversation discourses with--within the Western canon, when they see Matisse or a Manet or a Picasso, that in the conversation is a Mickalene Thomas. And that's one of the reasons why I use the genre of Western history, art history within my work. So that way, there's a Google search, my name comes out and relationship, and not only that, that particular institutions will want to collect those works because they have that provenance or sort of relationship, art historically.
