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.
Price Upon Request
Kindred Spirits, Tamika and Qusuquzah Sitting on Couch
By Mickalene Thomas
Located in New York, NY
Multidisciplinary artist Mickalene Thomas’ portraits critically deconstruct accepted definitions of beauty, race, and gender, specifically in relation to black women. Known for her ...
Archival Pigment
Price Upon Request
Hot! Wild! Unrestricted!
By Mickalene Thomas
Located in New York, NY
C-Print 24 x 30 inches
$2,950
H 30 in W 30 in
Embryo, Archival Pigment Print, Contemporary, 30x30 in, Edition of 10, Unframed
By Leandro Franco
Located in New York City, NY
Leandro Franco 30 × 30 in. (75 × 75 cm) Edition of 10 Archival Pigment Print Unframed Certificate of Authenticity included Framing available upon request Other Available Sizes 16 ...
Archival Paper, Archival Pigment
Dutch Delight by Hans Withoos
By Hans Withoos
Located in New York City, NY
Fine art inkjet print on special paper rag Ask us for framing options Hans Withoos career spans more than twenty years worldwide. After graduating from the Art Academy. He specializ...
Color, Archival Pigment, Digital Pigment
Forma, Horse Portrait, Equestrian Photography
By Raphael Macek
Located in New York City, NY
Large-scale photograph from the Equine Beauty series. The legendary and complex relationship between humans and horses is an enduring one. The horse’s distinctive blend of grace and...
Plexiglass, Archival Pigment
$2,950
H 30 in W 30 in
Holding Hands, Archival Pigment Print, 30x30 in, Contemporary Edition, Unframed
By Leandro Franco
Located in New York City, NY
Leandro Franco 30 × 30 in. (75 × 75 cm) Edition of 10 Archival Pigment Print Unframed Certificate of Authenticity included Framing available upon request Other Available Sizes 16 ...
Archival Paper, Archival Pigment
$2,950
H 30 in W 30 in
Poeticas Archival Pigment Print, Contemporary, 30x30 in, Edition of 10
By Leandro Franco
Located in New York City, NY
Leandro Franco 30 × 30 in. (75 × 75 cm) Edition of 10 Archival Pigment Print Unframed Certificate of Authenticity included Framing available upon request Other Available Sizes 16 ...
Archival Paper, Archival Pigment
Maternum, Horse Portrait, Equestrian Photography
By Raphael Macek
Located in New York City, NY
Large-scale photograph from the Equine Beauty series. The legendary and complex relationship between humans and horses is an enduring one. The horse’s distinctive blend of grace and...
Plexiglass, Archival Pigment
$12,500
H 40 in W 48 in D 0.1 in
Massimo Listri - Palazzo Reale IV, Venice, Italy (Portrait of Interiors)
By Massimo Listri
Located in New York City, NY
Chromogenic Print – Unframed Free Shipping – Ask us for custom framing options. 40 x 48 inches - edition of 5 48 x 60 inches - edition of 5 71 x 88.5 inches - edition of 5 "My ph...
Archival Paper, C Print
$6,500
H 60 in W 48 in D 2 in
Day 18 by Juliette Jourdain - Big headed series - Self Portrait
By Juliette Jourdain
Located in New York City, NY
Juliette Jourdain Big headed series - Self Portrait mounted and framed (matt white) 60 x 48 inches 150 x 120cm edition of 8 Also available in: 4...
Archival Pigment
$5,800
H 60 in W 40 in D 2 in
Corpo Figurado I, Fashion Photography by Leandro Franco
By Leandro Franco
Located in New York City, NY
Leandro Franco 60 × 40 in. (150 × 100 cm) Edition of 7 Archival Pigment Print Unframed Certificate of Authenticity included Framing available upon request Other Available Sizes 16...
Archival Paper, Archival Pigment
Tyler Shields - Ferrari Legs - Signed Photograph
By Tyler Shields
Located in New York City, NY
Los Angeles-based photographer Tyler Shields seeks “beauty in chaos,” capturing both young models and celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan and Mischa Barton. His polished editorial imag...
Plexiglass, Archival Paper, C Print
L'occhio degli dei Pantheon, Rome, Italy
By Massimo Listri
Located in New York City, NY
Chromogenic Print – Unframed Free Shipping – Ask us for custom framing options. 40 x 48 inches - edition of 5 48 x 60 inches - edition of 5 71 x 88.5 inches - edition of 5 "My ph...
Archival Paper, C Print
$2,950
H 30 in W 30 in
Fragments 2, Archival Pigment Print, 30x30 in, Edition of 10, Unframed
By Leandro Franco
Located in New York City, NY
Leandro Franco 30 × 30 in. (75 × 75 cm) Edition of 10 Archival Pigment Print Unframed Certificate of Authenticity included Framing available upon request Other Available Sizes 16 ...
Archival Paper, Archival Pigment
$16,500
H 47.5 in W 95 in D 2 in
Massimo Listri - Basilica of Sant’Andrea, Mantua, Italy (Triptych)
By Massimo Listri
Located in New York City, NY
MASSIMO LISTRI Basilica of Sant’Andrea, Mantua, Italy2017 Available sizes: 120 x 240 cm (47.5 x 95 inches) Triptych Edition of 5 Chromogenic print 180 x 360 cm (71 x 142 inches) Triptych Edition of 5 Chromogenic print Signed by the artist The basilica of Sant'Andrea was built in 1472 on the site of an old 11th-century church. Built according to Leon Battista Alberti...
Archival Paper, C Print
$5,000
H 22.5 in W 30 in D 0.1 in
Tyler Shields - Ferrari Rope Pull - Signed Photograph
By Tyler Shields
Located in New York City, NY
Los Angeles-based photographer Tyler Shields seeks “beauty in chaos,” capturing both young models and celebrities such as Lindsay Lohan and Mischa Barton. His polished editorial imag...
Plexiglass, Archival Paper, C Print
$11,760
H 40 in W 60 in D 2 in
Reverentia, Netherlands, Horse Portrait, Equine Beauty
By Raphael Macek
Located in New York City, NY
The photographic work of Raphael Macek offers profound meditation on the timeless bond between humans and horses. With exceptional sensitivity, Macek captures the equine form as both...
Plexiglass, Archival Pigment
The High Priestess
By Mickalene Thomas
Located in Saint Louis, MO
The High Priestess, 2010 Archival inkjet print Framed Dimensions: 20.19 x 16.25 x 1 inches (51.27 x 41.27 x 2.54 cm) Edition of 7, 2/3 AP
Archival Ink, Inkjet
Portrait of Marie Sitting in Black and White
By Mickalene Thomas
Located in Toronto, Ontario
This work, a black and white photo, is somewhat of an anomaly in Thomas' oeuvre. However "Marie" is surrounded by Thomas' signature background of fabrics in varying textures and patt...
Photogravure