Mickalene Thomas / Portrait of an Unlikely Space
Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, CT • artgallery.yale.edu • Through January 7, 2024
This intriguing exhibition of small-scale portraits, from miniatures and daguerreotypes to silhouettes on paper and engravings in books of African-American women, men, and children from the pre-Emancipation era, was inspired by a palm-sized watercolor painting on ivory from the 1830s gifted in 2016 to the Yale University Art Gallery.
The miniature depicts a formerly enslaved woman, Rose Prentice (1771–1852), painted by Sarah Goodridge (1788–1853), a largely self-taught artist whose miniatures, especially those painted on ivory, were sought-after and widely exhibited: Goodridge’s subjects included Daniel Webster and Gilbert Stuart. It is believed Prentice and Goodridge met when both were living in Boston.
“Prentice’s personal tribulations of enslavement, her decades-long labor as a domestic worker in white households, and the commission and ownership of her portrait by white patrons offer possible points of connection with the individuals pictured in the other historical objects on display,” according to Keely Orgeman, Yale’s associate curator of Modern and Contemporary Art and exhibition co-curator.
Portrait of an Unlikely Space is co-curated by internationally acclaimed artist/activist Mickalene Thomas (Yale M.F.A. 2002), the primary artistic contributor to this exhibition. Thomas is known for sumptuous paintings and photographic portraits of Black women as well as immersive, living-room style installations such as the one she is creating for Yale, which aims for the aura of a pre-Civil War interior. Complementary artworks, many incorporating the work of early-career artists of color, include sculpture, video and Thomas’ Polaroid photographs. “Our exhibition is a way of deepening the sense of interconnectedness among the stories of those who are included, whether as subjects or artists,” adds Orgeman.
“The meanings of Prentice’s portrait unfold the longer you sit with it, and that’s the kind of engagement I hope to facilitate with the other works, too, by enveloping them within transformed galleries where visitors will want to linger. I created my previous domestic settings primarily for fellow Black women—my ‘muses’—to spend time and have new experiences in familiar surroundings, perhaps resembling their mothers’ or grandmothers’ living rooms,” writes Thomas in the exhibition catalogue. “The sitters are my muses here. I dedicate this space to them.”
— Susan Rand Brown