Mickalene Thomas: Sandra, She's a Beauty, 2009 (public art)

On the Anne H. Fitzpatrick Façade this fall from October 1, 2024 – February 17, 2025, the photo collage of a mother, crafted by her daughter, welcomes visitors to the Gardner Museum. Clothed in regal red, Sandra Bush, mother of multidisciplinary artist Mickalene Thomas, both recalls and rejects the dominant canon of Western portraiture with a radiant smile. An artist whose work aims to embolden, Thomas began to photograph Sandra while she was still a student at Yale. This lightning rod moment gave birth to numerous paintings, collage works, and photographs that serve as a daughter’s homage, aspirational mirror, and practice through which to examine the power of self-possessed beauty.  For the Gardner Façade, a public art space for the enjoyment of all, Mickalene Thomas reimagines a photographic collage of Sandra from 2009 in relation to Édouard Manet’s renowned portrait of his own mother in the Gardner’s collection. In doing so, Thomas simultaneously immortalizes her first muse and interrogates the nature of how Black women are represented across historical art and contemporary culture. Image: Mickalene Thomas, Sandra, She's a Beauty, 2009. Artist rendering (detail) © Mickalene Thomas

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

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Mickalene Thomas: Sandra, She's a Beauty, 2009 (public art)

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