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.
$18,750Sale Price|25% Off
Jet Blue in Landscape
By Mickalene Thomas
Located in New Canaan, CT
This edition was created specifically for The Glass House Art Editions Program. Every artwork purchased contributes to preservation projects on site and allows us to provide engaging...
Enamel, Steel
$1,196Sale Price|20% Off
H 19 in W 11 in D 8 in
Sèvres Style Biscuit Grouping of Children with Flowers in Landscape
By Manufacture Nationale de Sèvres
Located in West Palm Beach, FL
Sèvres style biscuit grouping of children with flowers in landscape, of large size, In remarkable condition, highly detailed grouping, marked wit...
Porcelain
$4,117
H 21.66 in W 18.12 in D 3.94 in
Landscape Blue on Blue I, aqua & jade Glass Sculptural Plate by Kate Jones
By Kate Jones
Located in London, GB
'Landscape Blue on Blue I' is a unique blue and aqua hand-blown and etched glass sculptural plate by the British artist Kate Jones, with a painted ste...
Steel
Pair of Blue Swans in Murano
Located in Miami, FL
Pair of blue swans in Murano.
Art Glass
$1,495
H 9.5 in W 3 in D 3 in
Empire Ormolu Portrait Sculpture of Napoleon Bonaparte, in Landscape C. 1875
Located in West Palm Beach, FL
Empire Ormolu Portrait Sculpture of Napoleon Bonaparte, Circa 1875 Presenting a distinguished Empire Ormolu Portrait Sculpture of Napoleon Bonaparte, dating to circa 1875. Standing ...
Bronze, Ormolu
$640
H 6.3 in W 11 in D 3.5 in
Pair of Bookmatched Small Blue Lace Agate Geodes with Polished, Landscaped Backs
Located in Ametista Do Sul, BR
Pair of Bookmatched Blue Lace Agate Geodes ▫️Description Small yet stunning, this pair of Bookmatched Blue and White Lace Agate Geodes showcases intricate, flawless agate laces in soothing blue and white tones. These specimens will add a touch of rarity to your space, whether displayed on a bookshelf...
Crystal, Quartz, Rock Crystal
$24,713 / item
H 57.09 in Dm 59.06 in
Pocket-Landscape "Spirale" Landscape Sculpture in Black Iron by Aldo Cibic
By Aldo Cibic
Located in Como, IT
Spirale is a sculpture, part of the "Pocket-Landscape" collection designed by Aldo Cibic: a slide, a twisted drainpipe, a downhill path contaminated by nature. “I have always been ...
Metal
$27,066 / item
H 29.53 in Dm 39.38 in
Pocket-Landscape "Boschetto" Landscape Sculpture in Black Iron by Aldo Cibic
By Aldo Cibic
Located in Como, IT
Boschetto is a sculpture, part of the "Pocket-Landscape" collection designed by Aldo Cibic: a circular garden that welcomes and connects five plants of different species creating a...
Iron
$37,658 / item
H 29.53 in W 63 in D 39.38 in
Pocket-Landscape "Colline" Landscape Sculpture in Black Iron by Aldo Cibic
By Aldo Cibic
Located in Como, IT
"Colline" is a table or sculpture, part of the "Pocket-Landscape" collection designed by Aldo Cibic: a scenery with two hills and a tree. “I have always been attracted to nature tha...
Iron
Whimsical Landscape Sculpture in Bronze sitting on Onyx Base Jere style
By C. Jeré Artisan House
Located in San Diego, CA
whimsical table sculpture circa 1970's in bronze sitting on onyx base figurative landscape , signed Jason nice well done piece .
Onyx, Bronze
$34,127 / item
H 29.53 in W 39.38 in D 39.38 in
Pocket-Landscape "Anfiteatro" Landscape Sculpture in Black Iron by Aldo Cibic
By Aldo Cibic
Located in Como, IT
"Anfiteatro" is a table / sculpture, part of the "Pocket-Landscape" collection designed by Aldo Cibic: a square where three trees shade a bas-relief amphitheater. “I have always been attracted to nature that displays its strength in unexpected settings. For example, when roadside tarmac cracks and rises up to let blades of grass grow through, or when there are weeds along the edges of the paving...
Iron
$1,000
H 13 in W 11.03 in D 11.03 in
Vintage Murano glass Fish Sculpture in amethyst, blue and orange, Italy in stock
By Formia Murano
Located in Venezia, IT
Fish Sculpture in amethyst, blue and orange Murano glass, Italy in stock Dimensions: L 28 cm x H 33 cm x D 28 cm ( L 11.0" x H 12.9" x D 11.0") We recently came across the untouche...
Murano Glass
Christmas set ceramic ornaments in delfts Blue
Located in Delft, NL
Christmas set ceramic ornaments in delfts Blue Four different ceramic Christmas ornaments in white with a blue Delft print by van Heinen, Delft Blue. An Angel sitting with a gold co...
Ceramic