Les Trois Femmes Deux by Mickalene Thomas

Mickalene Thomas creates vibrantly layered artworks that reclaim iconic images to center Black female subjectivity in the history of art.

A direct response to Edouard Manet’s Luncheon on the Grass, this photograph transposes the scene of three White figures having a picnic in a park to an interior view of three exquisitely coiffed and adorned Black women (including Thomas’s partner at right) gazing directly and confidently at the viewer.

Édouard Manet (French, 1832–1883), Déjeuner sur l’herbe (Luncheon on the Grass), 1863, oil on canvas, 81 7/8 × 104 1/16 inches, Musée d’Orsay, Paris, France. © RMN (Musée d'Orsay)/Hervé Lewandowski/Wikimedia Commons.

The colorful, wood-paneled living room is complete with fake plants and assorted textiles, which evoke Thomas's 1970s childhood.

That time period is further referenced with a Donna Summer album tucked in the corner of the room.

Mickalene Thomas (American, born 1971), Les Trois Femmes Deux, 2018, dye coupler print, 48 × 60 inches, purchase with funds from the Friends of Photography, 2018.214. © Mickalene Thomas.