Mickalene Thomas reinterprets 18th- and 19th-century Romantic paintings, placing black women front-and-center in carefully staged portraits.
Morris: “The image is of her mother, who was a very important inspiration and muse for her. In this case, her mother takes on this recumbent nude figure that is a classic pose in art history. That a male artist often posed a nude woman in this suggestive repose is, in this case, complicated by Mickalene’s relationship to the figure, who is her mother. It’s still involved in this conversation about the change in the narrative of art history.”
