Mickalene ThomasHot! Wild! Unrestricted!2009
2009
About the Item
- Creator:Mickalene Thomas (1971 -, American)
- Creation Year:2009
- Period:
- Condition:
- Gallery Location:New York, NY
- Reference Number:1stDibs: LU271267913
Mickalene Thomas
Although she’s best known for her vibrant and textural collage portraits of Black women, contemporary artist Mickalene Thomas is in fact a master of many mediums, including photography, video, sculpture and printmaking. Born in Camden, New Jersey, and raised by her mother, a fashion model, Thomas enrolled in after-school art classes at the Newark Museum of Art in Newark, New Jersey, and the Henry Street Settlement in New York City as a child. Later, she would earn fine art degrees from Pratt Institute and Yale University.
Inspired in part by her strong, matriarchal upbringing and her own identity as a queer Black woman, Thomas focuses on female power, beauty and sexuality in her works. She cites a 1990s-era exhibition of Carrie Mae Weems’s work at the Portland Art Museum in Oregon as being critically important to her becoming an artist. In her work, Thomas commonly pulls from the art history canon, riffing frequently on the styles and compositions of early modernists such as Gustave Courbet, Édouard Manet and Henri Matisse, as well as more contemporary artists like Romare Bearden and David Hockney. She recontextualizes their paintings by restaging them with Black subjects, using signature materials like rhinestones, enamel and acrylic paint to profound effect. Relatedly, for a collaboration with Dior, Thomas reinvented the house’s iconic Bar jacket and Lady Dior handbag to become, essentially, wearable Claude Monet landscapes.
Thomas also investigates the idea of Black celebrity in her work, painting portraits of such Black icons as Whitney Houston, Oprah Winfrey and Eartha Kitt. In 2008, Thomas painted the first individual silkscreen portrait of then–First Lady Michelle Obama, which was exhibited for the first time in the National Portrait Gallery’s “Americans Now” show.
Thomas’s work can be found in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Brooklyn Museum of Art, among others. She has received such accolades as the Timerhi Award for Leadership in the Arts in 2010, the Brooklyn Museum Asher B. Durand Award in 2012 and the Anonymous Was a Woman Award in 2013. In 2015, Thomas was named a USA Francie Bishop Good & David Horvitz Fellow.
Find Mickalene Thomas’s art on 1stDibs today.
- ShippingRetrieving quote...Ships From: New York, NY
- Return PolicyThis item cannot be returned.
- Pipes, Monahans, TX (VS-12-01)By Victoria SambunarisLocated in New York, NYEdition of 3Materials
C Print
- 11:45pm, Griffith Park & Eye #4By Alex PragerLocated in New York, NYFrom Compulsion Diptych
- Untitled #27By Laura LetinskyLocated in New York, NYFrom IV&IF
- Lee Plaza Ballroom, DetroitBy Andrew MooreLocated in New York, NY
- Untitled (#375)By Hellen van MeeneLocated in New York, NYMaterials
C Print
- Untitled (#370)By Hellen van MeeneLocated in New York, NYCategory
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Photography
MaterialsC Print
- Venaria Reale II - Torino (from Perspectives series)By Massimo ListriLocated in New York, NY"What makes his work unique is how he has made interiors look so absolutely vivid, as if they had a secret life of their own that only he knows how to portray. Listri has the extraor...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Color Photography
MaterialsC Print
- "Phalco's Look” Spaniel, Romantic Dog Photograph with beveled plexiglass frameLocated in Charleston, USAlain Foussier, born in France living in the Netherlands, perfects the mood and spirit of Spaniel dogs with his portrait photography. His Spaniel dog a...Category
2010s Romantic Color Photography
MaterialsPhotographic Paper
- Shirt Off Your Back (Deep, Blue, See)By Aubrey RoemerLocated in New York, NYShirt Off Your Back (Deep, Blue, See), 2016 Discarded t-shirts from refugees on Lesvos, Inkodye light emulsion prints, life jacket swatches, tape 110 x 65 inches (280 x 165 cm) A collection of the eyes of refugee women and children printed...Category
21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Color Photography
MaterialsMixed Media
- Keith in Exile – Unlimited Graphix Series (2022)By Norman SeeffLocated in Austin, USKeith in Exile – Unlimited Graphix Series (2022) by Norman Seeff Open edition museum quality archival pigment print of Rolling Stones guitarist, Keith Richards, created, printed and signed by Norman Seeff. Measures 38" × 50" This new art print by Norman Seeff was taken from Norman's original 1972 portrait session for the Exile on Main St...Category
Late 20th Century Contemporary Color Photography
MaterialsArchival Pigment
- The Rolling Stones "Between The Buttons" by Gered MankowitzBy Gered MankowitzLocated in Austin, USThe Rolling Stones, taken in London back in 1965 by Gered Mankowitz. Featuring Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts, Brian Jones and Bill Wyman. This image of the band is an o...Category
Late 20th Century Color Photography
MaterialsC Print
- David Bowie "Watch That Man IV" by SukitaBy Masayoshi SukitaLocated in Austin, US16" x 20", signed limited edition print of David Bowie by Masayoshi Sukita. Taken at RCA Studios, New York, 1973. As featured in the new movie, Moonage Daydream. This print is also ...Category
Late 20th Century Photorealist Portrait Photography
MaterialsC Print