Mickalene Thomas (born January 28, 1971) is a contemporary African-American

visual artist The visual arts are art forms such as painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, photography, video, filmmaking, design, crafts and architecture. Many artistic disciplines such as performing arts, conceptual art, and textile arts al ...

best known as a

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

of complex works using rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel."Mickalene Thomas"
Artnet, Retrieved 2 December 2018. Thomas's collage work is inspired from popular art histories and movements, including Impressionism, Cubism, Dada and the Harlem Renaissance. Her work draws from Western art history, pop art and visual culture to examine ideas around femininity, beauty, race, sexuality, and gender.

Early life and education

Mickalene Thomas was born on January 28, 1971 in

Camden, New Jersey Camden is a city in and the county seat of Camden County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Camden is part of the Delaware Valley metropolitan area and is located directly across the Delaware River from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At the 2020 ...

. She was raised in Hillside and East Orange.THOMAS, MICKALENE, and SEAN LANDERS. "MICKALENE THOMAS." BOMB, no. 116 (2011): 30-38 She was raised by her mother Sandra "Mama Bush" Bush, who, at 6'1" tall, modeled in the 1970s. She exposed Mickalene and her brother to art by enrolling them in after-school programs at the

Newark Museum The Newark Museum of Art (formerly known as the Newark Museum), in Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, United States, is the state's largest museum. It holds major collections of American art, decorative arts, contemporary art, and arts of Asia, Af ...

, and the

Henry Street Settlement The Henry Street Settlement is a not-for-profit social service agency in the Lower East Side neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City that provides social services, arts programs and health care services to New Yorkers of all ages. It was founde ...

in New York.Landers, Sean. "Mickalene Thomas." Artists in Conversation. ''BOMB Magazine'', Summer 2011. Thomas' mother raised her and her brother Buddhists. As a teenager, Mickalene and her mother had a very intimate and strenuous relationship due to her parents' addiction to drugs and Thomas dealing with her sexuality, which she documented in the short film ''Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman: A Portrait of My Mother''. Thomas lived and attended school in

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

, Oregon, from the mid-1980s to the early '90s, studying pre-law and Theater Arts. Thomas received her BFA from

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York (state), New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was ...

in 2000 and her MFA from

Yale School of Art The Yale School of Art is the art school of Yale University. Founded in 1869 as the first professional fine arts school in the United States, it grants Masters of Fine Arts degrees to students completing a two-year course in graphic design, painti ...

in 2002. Thomas participated in a residency program at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York from 2000 to 2003. She also participated in a residency in Giverny, France at the Versailles Foundation Munn Artists Program. She currently lives and works in

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, NY.

Artwork, style, and influences

During her early career, she found herself immersed in the growing culture of DIY artists and musicians, leading her to start her own body of work. Mickalene noted that when she became an artist, fashion was always "in the back of my mind" as a source of inspiration. She was influenced by

Jacob Lawrence Jacob Armstead Lawrence (September 7, 1917 – June 9, 2000) was an American painter known for his portrayal of African-American historical subjects and contemporary life. Lawrence referred to his style as "dynamic cubism", although by his own ...

, William H. Johnson, and

Romare Bearden Romare Bearden (September 2, 1911 – March 12, 1988) was an American artist, author, and songwriter. He worked with many types of media including cartoons, oils, and collages. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, Bearden grew up in New York City a ...

Most influential to her was the work of

Carrie Mae Weems Carrie Mae Weems (born April 20, 1953) is an American artist working in text, fabric, audio, digital images and installation video, and is best known for her photography. She achieved prominence through her early 1990s photographic project ''Th ...

, especially her ''Kitchen Table'' and ''Ain’t Jokin'' series, which were part of a retrospective held at the Portland Art Museum in 1994. Thomas describes the encounter in this way: "It was the first time I saw work by an African-American female artist that reflected myself and called upon a familiarity of family dynamics and sex and gender." Weems’ work not only played a role in Mickalene Thomas’ decision to switch studies and apply to

in New York but to use her experience and turn it into art. Thomas has also stated that Faith Ringgold provided an strong influencing in establishing Thomas' path. Her depictions of African-American women explore notions of celebrity and identity while engaging with the representation of black femininity and black power. Inhabiting the '70s-style genre of

Blaxploitation Blaxploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s. The term, a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation", was coined in August 1972 by Junius Griffin, the president o ...

, the subjects in Thomas's paintings and collages radiate sexuality, which has been interpreted by some as satire of misogynistic and racist tropes in media, including films and music associated with the

genre. Women in provocative poses dominate the picture plane and are surrounded by decorative patterns inspired by her childhood as in ''Left Behind 2 Again'' from 2012, in the collection of the

Honolulu Museum of Art The Honolulu Museum of Art (formerly the Honolulu Academy of Arts) is an art museum in Honolulu, Hawaii. The museum is the largest of its kind in the state, and was founded in 1922 by Anna Rice Cooke. The museum has one of the largest single col ...

. Her subjects are often well-known women like

Eartha Kitt Eartha Kitt (born Eartha Mae Keith; January 17, 1927 – December 25, 2008) was an American singer and actress known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 recordings of "C'est si bon" and the Christmas novelty song "Santa Ba ...

Whitney Houston Whitney Elizabeth Houston (August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012) was an American singer and actress. Nicknamed "The Voice", she is one of the bestselling music artists of all time, with sales of over 200 million records worldwide. Houston in ...

Oprah Winfrey Oprah Gail Winfrey (; born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954), or simply Oprah, is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', br ...

, and

Condoleezza Rice Condoleezza Rice ( ; born November 14, 1954) is an American diplomat and political scientist who is the current director of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. A member of the Republican Party, she previously served as the 66th Uni ...

. Her portrait of

Michelle Obama Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (born January 17, 1964) is an American attorney and author who served as first lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017. She was the first African-American woman to serve in this position. She is married t ...

was the first individual portrait done of the First Lady and was exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery's ''Americans Now'' show. In her 2017 solo exhibition "

Mentors Mentorship is the influence, guidance, or direction given by a mentor. A mentor is someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and often younger person. In an organizational setting, a mentor influences the personal and p ...

Muses In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses ( grc, Μοῦσαι, Moûsai, el, Μούσες, Múses) are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the p ...

, and

Celebrities Celebrity is a condition of fame and broad public recognition of a person or group as a result of the attention given to them by mass media. An individual may attain a celebrity status from having great wealth, their participation in sports ...

" at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis (CAM), Thomas created multi-media installations that centered black women in the narrative-arcs of their own stories. According to art critic Rikki Byrd: "Positioning black women — artists, actresses, characters, and her own family — as mentors and muses, and as heroic figures in a lineage of their own, Thomas overrides oppressive narratives." The many years that Thomas has spent studying art history, portrait painting, landscape painting, and still life has informed her work. She has drawn inspiration from multiple artistic periods and cultural influences throughout Western art history, particularly the early modernists such as

Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres ( , ; 29 August 1780 – 14 January 1867) was a French Neoclassicism, Neoclassical Painting, painter. Ingres was profoundly influenced by past artistic traditions and aspired to become the guardian of academic ...

Pablo Picasso Pablo Ruiz Picasso (25 October 1881 – 8 April 1973) was a Spanish painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist and Scenic design, theatre designer who spent most of his adult life in France. One of the most influential artists of the 20th ce ...

Henri Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prima ...

and

Édouard Manet Édouard Manet (, ; ; 23 January 1832 – 30 April 1883) was a French modernist painter. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, as well as a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism. Born ...

as well as more contemporary influences such as

and

Pam Grier Pamela Suzette Grier (born May 26, 1949) is an American actress and singer. Described by Quentin Tarantino as cinema's first female action star (although, there are some who dispute that claim and believe Cheng Pei-pei actually holds that distin ...

. She models her figures on the classical poses and abstract settings popularized by these modern artists as a way to reclaim agency for women who have been represented as objects to be desired or subjugated. Thomas is known for her elaborate mixed-media paintings composed of rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel that present a "complex vision of what it means to be a woman and expands common definitions of beauty." Rhinestones serve as an added layer of meaning and a metaphor for artifice. Rhinestones accentuate specific elements of each painting, while subtly confronting our assumptions of what is feminine and what defines a woman, specifically black women. According to the ''Financial Times'', "Proclaiming her own visibility and that of other women of colour is at the heart of Thomas’s practice, which inserts the black female body into art history by placing her muses in iconic poses and settings." Thomas, and curators of her work, see Thomas's status as a black

lesbian A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...

as part of what makes her

gaze In critical theory, sociology, and psychoanalysis, the gaze (French ''le regard''), in the philosophical and figurative sense, is an individual's (or a group's) awareness and perception of other individuals, other groups, or oneself. The concept ...

different from that of white male artists in history. Thomas's subjects are virtually always women of color; a means to portray and empower the women and celebrate their culture and beauty—sometimes by incorporating them into iconic Western paintings. As a member of, and inspired by, the Post-Black Art movement, Thomas' work redefines perceptions of race, gender, and sexuality. Thomas blurs the distinction between object and subject, concrete and abstract, real and imaginary. Her subjects often look directly at the viewer, challenging the dominance of the

male gaze In feminist theory, the male gaze is the act of depicting women and the world in the visual arts and in literature from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the heteros ...

in art. This assertive portrayal indicates that the models are at ease in their own skin, thus challenging the stereotype of the silent and inferior woman objectified by the viewer's gaze. In addition, seemingly insignificant decisions (like not straightening the figures’ hair) have the important effect of encouraging women of color to accept themselves as they are and not conform to a particular ideology of beauty imposed by society. Thomas's work is also distinctive in its foregrounding of queer identity; she is a queer woman of color representing women of color in a way that emphasizes their agency and erotic beauty. By emphasizing the women's striking presence and sensuality along with their assertive gazes, Thomas empowers these subjects, representing them as resilient, stunning women who command the spectator's attention. The sitters have the control and power of the gaze, and when this exchange is between women, it subverts the traditional dominance of the male gaze in art and visual culture. Thomas's queer identity is foregrounded, for example, in her painting and print edition entitled ''Sleep: Deux femmes noires'' (2012 and 2013), in which we see two female bodies intertwined in an embrace, on a sofa, thus highlighting for her audience the femininity, beauty, and sexuality of women lovers. Thomas has collaborated with the fashion house Dior on several occasions. Including designing handbags and her own design of the classic Dior Bar Jacket. Thomas' work was included in the 2022 exhibition ''Women Painting Women'' at the

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth The Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth (widely referred to as The Modern) is an art museum of post-World War II art in Fort Worth, Texas with a collection of international modern and contemporary art. Founded in 1892, The Modern is located in the c ...

Le Déjeuner Sur l'Herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires

''Le déjeuner sur l'herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires''
is a painting created by African-American visual artist Mickalene Thomas. The title of the painting translates from French as The luncheon on the grass: The Three Black Women. The painting is a contemporary take on

's 1863 painting entitled ''Le dejeuner sur l'herbe''. Thomas' piece portrays three black women adorned with rich colors, vintage patterned clothing, and radiant Afro-styled hair. The women's positioning and posing is reminiscent of the subjects of Manet's piece, but the powerful gazes of all three women are fixed on the viewer. Thomas created the painting, her largest piece at the time, in 2010 after being commissioned by the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

(MoMA) in New York City to create a display piece for 53rd street window of the museum's restaurant The Modern.

Description

''Le déjeuner sur l'herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires'' was created in three stages. First, Thomas photographed three models in the sculpture garden of the

MoMA Moma may refer to: People * Moma Clarke (1869–1958), British journalist * Moma Marković (1912–1992), Serbian politician * Momčilo Rajin (born 1954), Serbian art and music critic, theorist and historian, artist and publisher Places ; Ang ...

to make the piece “site-specific”. Thomas then created a collage using the photograph as a base material and added other elements. This collage now hangs in the lobby of the P.S.1, an extension of the

in Queens that houses unconventional contemporary artwork. The third, painted version was based on the original photograph but composed of collage-like painted segments on wood panels and rendered in acrylic, oil, enamel, and rhinestones. The painting stands 10 feet tall and extends 24 feet wide. Thomas has stated that she chose the massive size of the painting to physically and symbolically “take up space” in spaces that were traditionally dominated by white male artists. The original installation of the painting was in the window of The Modern,

's renowned restaurant. While on display here, the piece was visible every hour of the day because it could be seen by passersby on the street; this accessibility made ''Le déjeuner sur l'herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires'' Thomas' most public piece yet. The subjects of the painting are three rhinestone-studded, richly dressed women of color. The models who are the subjects of the original ''Le déjeuner sur l'herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires'' photograph are all friends of Thomas which is common across many of her photographs. All three women are fully clothed– compared to the nude female subjects in Manet's version of the scene– in richly patterned dresses that Thomas herself designed, and they sit upon fabrics staged by the artists. Many vintage patterns are used throughout the work. Thomas claims that this juxtaposition of patterns serves to represent the "amalgamation of all of the different things we are as Americans." Behind the women in both the photograph and the painting sits a Matisse sculpture that was situated behind the women in the sculpture garden.

Influences

''Le déjeuner sur l'herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires'' is unmistakably based on

's 1863 painting '' Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe''.

Manet A wireless ad hoc network (WANET) or mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a decentralized type of wireless network. The network is ad hoc because it does not rely on a pre-existing infrastructure, such as routers in wired networks or access points ...

's piece, which caused intense controversy at the time of its creation, exhibits two undressed women who are sitting comfortably with two formally dressed men at a picnic. While one of the nude women is crouched in the background, the three other subjects lounge in the foreground. The female subject in the foreground is looking out, meeting the gaze of the viewer, while the two men next to her are casually looking around. In Thomas' version of the painting, the three subjects in the foreground are all women of color who are fully clothed in colorful dresses with patterns reminiscent of the 1970s, and all three of the women's gazes confront the viewer. The woman in the background of

's scene is represented in Thomas' piece by a

Matisse Henri Émile Benoît Matisse (; 31 December 1869 – 3 November 1954) was a French visual artist, known for both his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known prima ...

sculpture in front of which she positioned the models in the photograph taken in the

sculpture garden. Paying homage to

by using his sculpture as a figure in her piece is not anomalous for Thomas as she often includes allusions to the iconic artist in her works. Thomas has cited

as an influence. In addition to these explicit allusions, ''Le déjeuner sur l'herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires'', along with many of Thomas' other pieces, is inspired by

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (Zurich), Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 192 ...

cubism Cubism is an early-20th-century avant-garde art movement that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture. In Cubist artwork, objects are analyzed, broken up and reassemble ...

, and the Harlem Renaissance.

Response

The majority of critical responses to ''Le déjeuner sur l'herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires'' address the piece's interaction with post-black and post-feminist ideas. Thomas’ work has received criticism common of post-black art claiming that, through the overtly sensual representation of her subjects, she is reveling “in the glittery spoils of success at the expense of meaningful social engagement.” Proponents of her work, however, believe that her approach to representing her subjects “reflects the shift in black art from didactic political narrative to post-black satire.” Regarding the way in which the subjects meet the viewer’s gaze,

Seattle Art Museum The Seattle Art Museum (commonly known as SAM) is an art museum located in Seattle, Washington, United States. It operates three major facilities: its main museum in downtown Seattle; the Seattle Asian Art Museum (SAAM) in Volunteer Park on Cap ...

curator Catharina Manchanda remarked, "these women are so grounded and perfectly comfortable in their own space... While we might be looking at them, they are also sizing us up."

curator

Klaus Biesenbach Klaus Biesenbach (born 1966)Erica Orden (December 26, 2009)Herr Zeitgeist''New York Magazine''. is a European American curator and the museum director. He is the Director of the Neue Nationalgalerie, with Berggruen Museum and Scharf-Gerstenberg Co ...

who originally commissioned the painting for the 53rd street window display explained that he requested Thomas largely because "her treatment of surfaces as complex layers of material, lacquer, rhinestone and paint corresponds with the libidinous nature of the contents she depicts." Since the original installment of this painting wherein the piece was exhibited as a singular display, ''Le déjeuner sur l'herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires'' has been included in a number of exhibits across North America including the

Art Gallery of Ontario The Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO; french: Musée des beaux-arts de l'Ontario) is an art museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is located in the Grange Park neighbourhood of downtown Toronto, on Dundas Street West between McCaul and Beve ...

, the

, and the

Baltimore Museum of Art The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) in Baltimore, Maryland, United States, is an art museum that was founded in 1914. The BMA's collection of 95,000 objects encompasses more than 1,000 works by Henri Matisse anchored by the Cone Collection of ...

Film, music, and video art

In addition to her paintings, the Brooklyn-based Thomas works in the mediums of

photography Photography is the art, application, and practice of creating durable images by recording light, either electronically by means of an image sensor, or chemically by means of a light-sensitive material such as photographic film. It is employed ...

collage Collage (, from the french: coller, "to glue" or "to stick together";) is a technique of art creation, primarily used in the visual arts, but in music too, by which art results from an assemblage of different forms, thus creating a new whole. ...

printmaking Printmaking is the process of creating artworks by printing, normally on paper, but also on fabric, wood, metal, and other surfaces. "Traditional printmaking" normally covers only the process of creating prints using a hand processed techniq ...

video art Video art is an art form which relies on using video technology as a visual and audio medium. Video art emerged during the late 1960s as new consumer video technology such as video tape recorders became available outside corporate broadcasting ...

sculpture Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

and

installation art Installation art is an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called ...

. Her works, in particular the ''Odalisque'' series (2007), have been interpreted as "investigating the artist-model relationship ..but from an updated perspective of female inter-subjectivity and same-sex desire." (''La Leçon d'amour'', 2008) She has restaged themes and symbolism with a long lineage in Western art in her references to the

odalisque An odalisque (, tr, odalık) was a chambermaid or a female attendant in a Turkish seraglio, particularly the court ladies in the household of the Ottoman sultan. In western usage, the term came to mean the harem concubine, and refers to the ...

representation of women in exotic settings. She experimented with institutional images in ''FBI/Serial Portraits'' (2008), based on mug shots of African-American women. In 2012, ''Mickalene Thomas: Origin of the Universe'', her first major solo museum exhibition, opened at the

Santa Monica Museum of Art The Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (ICA LA), formerly known as the Santa Monica Museum of Art (SMMoA), is a contemporary art museum in Los Angeles, CA. As an independent and non-collecting art museum (or kunsthalle), it exhibits the ...

and traveled to the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

. This show, the title of which references

Gustave Courbet Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...

’s 1866 painting '' L’Origine du monde'', showcased a series of recent portraits, landscapes and interiors. Thomas has collaborated with musician

Solange Solange (died 10 May, c. 880) was a Frankish shepherdess and a locally venerated Christian saint and cephalophore, whose cult is restricted to Sainte-Solange, Cher. Saint Solange was the patron of the traditional Province of Berry, of which C ...

, creating the cover art for her 2013 EP True. The cover began as a portrait of Solange the artist herself commissioned. Thomas and Solange also collaborated on a trailer for the music video for the song " Losing You." Her short film ''Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman'', created for her exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, is about Sandra Bush, her mother and longtime muse. In it, Sandra talks about careers, relationships, beauty, and her fatal illness. The film made its television debut on

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

on February 24, 2014, and has run regularly since.

Recognitions and honors

Thomas has been awarded multiple prizes and grants, including the ''

BOMB Magazine ''Bomb'' (stylized in all caps as ''BOMB'') is an American arts magazine edited by artists and writers, published quarterly in print and daily online. It is composed primarily of interviews between creative people working in a variety of disciplin ...

'' Honor (2015),

MoCADA Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA), is a museum of contemporary art located at 80 Hanson Place in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, New York City. It is the first museum of its kind to be opened in New York. History MoCADA was founded i ...

Artistic Advocacy Award (2015), AICA-USA Best Show in a Commercial Space Nationally, First Place (2014), Anonymous Was A Woman Grant (2013), Audience Award: Favorite Short, Second Annual Black Star Film Festival (2013), Brooklyn Museum Asher B. Durand Award (2012), Timehri Award for Leadership in the Arts (2010),

Joan Mitchell Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was an American artist who worked primarily in painting and printmaking, and also used pastel and made other works on paper. She was an active participant in the New York School of artis ...

Foundation Grant (2009), Pratt Institute Alumni Achievement Award (2009) and Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant (2007). Thomas has held residencies at

Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture is an artists residency located in Madison, Maine, just outside of Skowhegan. Every year, the program accepts online applications from emerging artists from November through January, and selects 65 ...

, Madison, Maine (2013) (resident faculty); Versailles Foundation Munn Artists Program, Giverny, France (2011); Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Aspen, Colorado (2010); Studio Museum in Harlem (2003);

Vermont Studio Center The Vermont Studio Center (VSC) is a non-profit arts organization located in the town of Johnson, Vermont. It conducts the largest fine arts and writing residency program in the United States, with a significant population of international artis ...

, Johnson, Vermont (2001); and Yale Norfolk Summer of Music and Art, Norfolk, Connecticut (1999).

Notable works in public collections

*''Panthera'' (2002), Studio Museum in Harlem, New York *''Instant Gratification (from Brawling Spitfire Wrestling series)'' (2005),

Rubell Museum The Rubell Museum, formerly the Rubell Family Collection, is a private contemporary art museum with locations in the Allapattah neighborhood of Miami, Florida, and the Southwest Waterfront neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Opened to the public i ...

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

*''Rumble (from Brawling Spitfire Wrestling series)'' (2005),

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

*''Mama Bush II, Keep the Home Fires Burnin' ''(2006), Rubell Museum, Miami/Washington, D.C. *''Remember Me'' (2006),

Yale University Art Gallery The Yale University Art Gallery (YUAG) is the oldest university art museum in the Western Hemisphere. It houses a major encyclopedic collection of art in several interconnected buildings on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. ...

New Haven, Connecticut New Haven is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound in New Haven County, Connecticut and is part of the New York City metropolitan area. With a population of 134,02 ...

*''Can't We Just Sit Down and Talk It Over?'' (2006-2007), Art Institute of Chicago; and Studio Museum in Harlem, New York *''A Little Taste Outside of Love'' (2007),

, New York *''Lovely Six Foota'' (2007),

International Center of Photography The International Center of Photography (ICP), at 79 Essex Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York City, consists of a museum for photography and visual culture and a school offering an array of educational courses and programming. ...

, New York *''Madame Mama Bush in Black and White'' (2007), Brooklyn Museum, New York *''Sista Sista Lady Blue'' (2007),

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

*''Oprah Winfrey'' (2007-2008), National Portrait Gallery,

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

, Washington, D.C. *''Din Avec la Main Dans le Miroir'' (2008),

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA) is a museum and private art school in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sinc ...

*''Michelle O'' (2008),

;

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston The Museum of Fine Arts (often abbreviated as MFA Boston or MFA) is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the world, measured by public gallery area. It contains 8,161 paintings and more than 450,000 works ...

; and National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. *''A Moment's Pleasure in Black and White'' (2008),

Whitney Museum The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...

, New York *''Portrait of Qusuquzah'' (2008),

Minneapolis Institute of Art The Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia) is an arts museum located in Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. Home to more than 90,000 works of art representing 5,000 years of world history, Mia is one of the largest art museums in the United State ...

*''A-E-I-O-U and Sometimes Y'' (2009),

National Museum of Women in the Arts The National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA), located in Washington, D.C., is "the first museum in the world solely dedicated" to championing women through the arts. NMWA was incorporated in 1981 by Wallace and Wilhelmina Holladay. Since openin ...

, Washington, D.C. *''Ain't I A Woman (Keri)'' (2009),

, New York *''I Learned the Hard Way'' (2010),

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA; french: Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal, MBAM) is an art museum in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the largest art museum in Canada by gallery space. The museum is located on the historic Golden Square ...

*''Le déjeuner sur l'herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires'' (2010), Baltimore Museum of Art *''Portrait of Mnonja'' (2010),

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...

, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. *''You're Gonna Give Me the Love I Need'' (2010),

Allen Memorial Art Museum The Allen Memorial Art Museum (AMAM) is an art museum located in Oberlin, Ohio, and it is run by Oberlin College. Founded in 1917, the collection contains over 15,000 works of art. Overview The AMAM is primarily a teaching museum and is aimed at ...

Oberlin, Ohio Oberlin is a city in Lorain County, Ohio, United States, 31 miles southwest of Cleveland. Oberlin is the home of Oberlin College, a liberal arts college and music conservatory with approximately 3,000 students. The town is the birthplace of the ...

*''Melody: Back'' (2011),

National Gallery of Art The National Gallery of Art, and its attached Sculpture Garden, is a national art museum in Washington, D.C., United States, located on the National Mall, between 3rd and 9th Streets, at Constitution Avenue NW. Open to the public and free of char ...

, Washington, D.C. *''Qusuquzah, une très belle négresse 1'' (2011), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art *''Portrait of Marie Sitting in Black and White'' (2012), Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia *''Sleep: Deux Femmes Noires'' (2013), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston *''Hair Portrait #20'' (2014),

*''Racquel: Come to Me'' (2016), Whitney Museum, New York *''Resist #2'' (2021), Baltimore Museum of Art *''Guernica (Resist #3)'' (2021),

Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art is a museum of American art in Bentonville, Arkansas. The museum, founded by Alice Walton and designed by Moshe Safdie, officially opened on 11 November 2011. It offers free public admission. Overview ...

Bentonville, Arkansas Bentonville is the List of cities and towns in Arkansas, tenth-largest city in Arkansas, United States and the county seat of Benton County, Arkansas, Benton County. The city is centrally located in the county with Rogers, Arkansas, Rogers adja ...

Personal life

Thomas is an out lesbian. Her former partner, collaborator, and long-time artistic subject is Racquel Chevremont. With Chevremont, Thomas founded The Josie Club, a support network for queer female artists of color to help support, fundraise and sponsor their work. Thomas and Chevremont separated in 2020 after a decade together.