Mickalene Thomas (b. 1971, Camden, NJ)
Solo Exhibitions
2024 All About Love, The Broad, Los Angeles, CA;
traveling to The Hayward Gallery, London, UK (2025)
2023 Je t’adore, Yancey Richardson, New York, NY
2022 Mickalene Thomas: Avec Monet, Musée de l’Orangerie, Paris, France
2021 Mickalene Thomas Femmes Noires, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, LA; Beyond The Pleasure Principle, Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris, France; Mickalene Thomas: A Moment's Pleasure, Baltimore Museum of Art, MD
2020 Better Nights, The Bass Museum of Art, Miami, FL
2019 Jet: beautés du mois, Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris, France
2018 Mickalene Thomas: Femmes Noires, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, Canada; Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, LA; MUSE: Mickalene Thomas Photographs, Henry Art Gallery, Seattle, Washington; Mickalene Thomas: I Can’t See You Without Me, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH
2017 Muse: Mickalene Thomas, Pomona College Museum of Art, Claremont,
CA; Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH; Virginia Museum of Contemporary
Art, Virginia Beach, VA; Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, GA Mentors,
Muses and Celebrities, Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta,
GA; Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis, St. Louis, MO
Mickalene Thomas: Muse and Tête-à-Tête, Maryland Institute College
of Art, Baltimore, MD Mickalene Thomas: Waiting on a Prime-Time Star,
Newcomb Art Museum, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA; Moody
Center for the Arts, Houston, TX
2016 tête-à-tête, David Castillo Gallery, Miami, FL
Mentors, Muses and Celebrities, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen CO
the desire of the other, Lehmann Maupin, Hong Kong, China
Mickalene Thomas: Do I Look Like a Lady?, MOCA, Los Angeles, CA
Muse: Mickalene Thomas Photographs and tête-à-tête, Aperture
Foundation, New York, NY;
2015 Mickalene Thomas: I am your sister, Galerie Obadia, Brussels, Belgium
Mickalene Thomas at Giverny, Jepson Center,
Telfair Museums, Savannah, GA
2014 I was born to do great things, Kavi Gupta, Chicago, IL
Femme au divan I, Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris, France
Femme au divan II, Pavillon Bosio,
École Supérieure d’Arts Plastiques, Monaco
Tête de Femme, Lehmann Maupin, New York, NY
Mickalene Thomas: Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman, George
Eastman House, Rochester, NY
2013 Better Days, Absolut Vodka project, Art Basel, Basel, Switzerland
2012 How to Organize a Room Around a Striking Piece of Art, Lehmann
Maupin, New York, NY Origin of the Universe, Santa Monica Museum of
Art, Santa Monica, CA; Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
Mickalene Thomas, The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA
2011 More Than Everything, Lehmann Maupin, New York, NY
Mama Bush: One of a Kind Two, The Hara Museum of Contemporary
Art, Tokyo, Japan
2010 Put A Little Sugar In My Bowl, Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles
Projects, Culver City, CA
2009 Something You Can Feel, La Conservera Contemporary Art Space,
Ceuti, Spain
She’s Come UnDone!, Lehmann Maupin, New York, NY
Mickalene Thomas, Alumni Achievement Award Exhibition, Pratt
Institute, Brooklyn, NY
2008 Girlfriends, Lovers, Still Lifes and Landscape, Rhona Hoffman Gallery,
Chicago, IL
What’s Love Got To Do With It?, Bloom Projects, Santa Barbara
Contemporary Arts Forum, Santa Barbara, CA
2007 An Imitation of Love, Brawlin’ Spitfire Two, Susanne Vielmetter Los
Angeles Projects, Los Angeles, CA
2006 Something About You…, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, IL
Brawlin’ Spitfire, Special Project, Dust Gallery, Las Vegas, NV
Group Exhibitions
2018 Figuring History: Robert Colescott, Kerry James Marshall, Mickalene
Thomas, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA
2017 You Are Here, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC
Reclamation! Pan-African Works from the Beth Rudin DeWoody
Collection, Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke, VA
Figuring History, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA
Historias da Sexualidade, Museu de Arte de Säo Paulo, Säo Paulo,
Brazil 2017 Canadian Biennial, National Gallery of Canada, Ontario,
Canada About Face, Southampton Arts Center, Southampton, NY
Trigger: Gender As A Tool And A Weapon, New Museum,
New York, NY
Created by Light, Cameron Art Museum, Wilmington, NC
Sonic Rebellion: Music As Resistance, Museum of Contemporary Art
Detroit, Detroit, MI The Coffins of Paa Joe and the Pursuit of
Happiness, The School, Jack Shainman Gallery, Kinderhook, NY
Gray Matters, Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH
THE CARPET KARTELL, Tanja Grunert Gallery, New York, NY
Woman With a Camera, Museum of Contemporary
Art Chicago, Chicago, IL
Part I: Figuration, University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, MI
Third Space / Shifting Conversations About Contemporary Art,
Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL
Sharp Tongued Figuration, Stedman Gallery, Rutgers University, New
Brunswick, NJ Constructing Identity: Petrucci Family Foundation
Collection of African-American Art, Portland Art Museum, Portland, ME
2016 The Color Line, Musée du quai Branly, Paris, France
Shifting Coordinates, 21c Museum Hotel, Cincinnati, OH
First Light: A Decade of Collecting at the ICA, Institute of
Contemporary Art, Boston, Boston MA
SHE: International Women Artists Exhibition, Long Museum,
Shanghai, China
Fifty Years After: Gordon Parks, Carrie Mae Weems,
Mickalene Thomas, LaToya Ruby Frazier, James Barron Art, Kent, CT
Repossession, Lehmann Maupin, New York, NY
Modern Heroics: 75 Years of African-American Expressionism, Newark
Museum, Newark, NJ
Declaration, Robischon Gallery, Denver, CO
Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival, Toronto, ON, Canada
On Paper: Picturing Painting, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD
Everybody is crazy, but me, Maison Particulière, Brussels, Belgium
In Living Color: Andy Warhol and Contemporary Printmaking from the
Collection of Jordan D. Schnitzer and His Family Foundation, Museum
of Contemporary Art Jacksonville, Jacksonville, FL
Unsuspending Disbelief, Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts,
University of Chicago, Chicago, IL
REMIX: Themes and Variations in African-American Art, Columbia
Museum of Art, Columbia, SC
30 Americans, Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH
Be My Guest: The Art of Interiors, No Longer Empty, New York, NY
A Decade of Collecting Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, Saint Louis
Art Museum, St. Louis, MO
HAUTE HIP-HOP, projects + gallery, St. Louis, MO
2015 30 Americans, Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, MI
No Man’s Land: Women Artists from the Rubell Family Collection,
Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL
Self-Proliferation, Girls’ Club Collection, Fort Lauderdale, FL
Pratt Institute Alumni Exhibition 2015, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY
US IS THEM, Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH
A Room of One’s Own, Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York, NY
Speaking Back | Curated by Natasha Becker, Goodman Gallery, Cape
Town, South Africa Eye Pop: The Celebrity Gaze,
Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. Pops Stars!
Popular Culture and Contemporary Art, 21c Museum Hotel, Durham,
NC ReSignifications: European Blackmoors, Africana Re-Stagings,
Sala D’Arme; San Firenze in Palazzo Vecchio; the Medici Palazzo; Villa
La Pietra, Florence, Italy
Portraits and Other Likenesses from SFMOMA, Museum of the African
Diaspora, San Francisco, CA
As We See It: Selected Works from the Danny Simmons Collection,
African American Art Museum, Philadelphia, PA
Future Seasons Past, Lehmann Maupin, New York, NY
Piece by Piece: Building a Collection, a Selection of Works From the
Collection of Christy and WIlliam C. Gautreaux, The Kemper Museum,
Kansas City, MO
2014 Fusion: Art of the 21st Century, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts,
Richmond, VA
History, Bill Hodges Gallery, New York, NY
The Pathology of Glamour, William Shearburn Gallery, St. Louis, MO
Speaking of People: Ebony, Jet, and Contemporary Art, Studio
Museum Harlem, New York, NY
Post Pop: East Meets West, Saatchi Gallery, London, United Kingdom
Rauschenberg: Collecting & Connecting, Nasher Museum of Art, Duke
University, Durham, NC
Beyond the Classical: Imagining the Ideal Across Time, National
Academy Museum, New York, NY
Burn with Desire: Glamour in Photography and Film, Ryerson Image
Center, Toronto, Canada First International Contemporary Art Biennial,
Cartagena de Indias, Colombia
Look at Me: Portraiture from Manet to the Present, Leila Heller Gallery,
New York, NY
Bash II, Kleinert/James Gallery, Woodstock, NY
GIRL, curated by Pharrel Williams, Galerie Perrotin, Paris, France
Aftershock: The Impact of Radical Art, Edleman Arts, New York, NY
Alijira at 30, Dream and Reality, New Jersey State Museum, Trenton,
NJ Pop Departures, Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA
L’Ecole des Beaux Arts de Monaco, Monaco
Reflect, Cut, Construct, Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia Univeristy,
New York, NY
Aspects of the Self: Portraits of Our Times, Center for the Arts at
Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA
30 Americans, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, LA
Domestic Unrest, Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London, United Kingdom
Shakti, Brand New Gallery, Milan, Italy
2013 Show and Tell: Calder Jewelry and Mobile, Salon 94, New York, NY
Seven Sisters, Jenkins Johnson Gallery, San Francisco, CA
Lunch with Olympia, Yale University School of Art, New Haven, CT
Amor Fati, Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY
Desire, Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York, NY
Paintings from the gallery collection, Gallery Koyanagi, Tokyo, Japan
30 Americans, Frist Center for Visual Arts, Nashville, TN; Milwaukee Art
Museum, Milwaukee, WI
Personal, Political, Mysterious, FLAG Art Foundation, New York, NY
Black Eye, Concept NV, New York, NY
Body Language, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
The Distaff Side, The Granary, Sharon, CT
Du Bois in our time, University Museum of Contemporary Art, UMASS,
Amherst, MA Expanding the Field of Painting, Institute of
Contemporary Art Boston, Boston, MA Contemporary Magic: A Tarot
Deck Art Project, Dali Museum, St. Petersburg, FL; Virginia Museum of
Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, VA
The Opera, Performa, New York, NY
Exposing the Gaze: Gender and Sexuality in Art, The Nasher Museum
of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC
2012 Twisted Sisters, Dodge Gallery, New York, NY
Tête-à-tête, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, IL
Configured, Benrimon Contemporary, New York, NY
Contemporary African Printmakers, Nazareth College Arts Center,
Rochester, NY
Look Now: Modern and Contemporary Work from Private Collections,
Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ
Bending the Mirror, Canani Center Gallery at the Columbus College of
Art and Design, Columbus, OH
Room in My Head: Staging Psychological Spaces, Gutstein Gallery,
SCAD, Savannah, GA
Histories: The Sheldon Permanent Collection, Sheldon Museum of Art,
Lincoln, NE
28 Days, Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, University of Toronto, Toronto,
Canada
Global Africa Project, Reginald Lewis Museum, Baltimore, MD; High
Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA, Seattle Art Museum, Tacoma Art Museum,
Bellevue Art Museum, Seattle, WA
Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the
Present, Everhart Museum, Scranton, PA
Bling, Jim Kempner Fine Art, New York, NY
Blacks in Black and White, Brand New Gallery, Milan, Italy
2011 Reframing the Feminine, Girl’s Club, Fort Lauderdale, FL
Body Gesture, Elizabeth Leach Gallery, Portland, OR
Who, What, Wear: Selections from the Permanent Collection, Studio
Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
The Bearden Project, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
Beyond Bling: Voices of Hip-Hop in Art, The John and Mable Ringling
Museum of Art, Sarasota, FL
MelodyMania, RH Gallery, New York, NY
EAT ME!, Goodman Gallery, Cape Town, South Africa
A Room of Her Own, Lu Magnus Gallery, New York, NY
Posing Beauty: African American Images from the 1890s to the
Present, Newark Museum, Newark, NJ, USC Fisher Museum of Art,
Los Angeles, CA
Contemporary Magic: A Tarot Deck Art Project, Andy Warhol Museum,
Pittsburgh, PA Building the Contemporary Collection: Five Years of
Acquisitions, Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC
The Way We Are Now: Selections from the 21st c. Collection,
Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH
Safety in Numbers? Images of African American Identity and
Community, Portland Art Museum, Portland, ME
Be Alive: Selections from the Hara Museum Collection, Hara Museum,
Tokyo, Japan
30 Americans, Corcoran Gallery, Washington, D.C. and the North
Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC
Seeing Now: Photography Since 1960, Baltimore Museum of Art,
Baltimore, MD
The Truth is Not in the Mirror, Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette
University, Milwaukee, WI; University Galleries at Illinois State
University, Normal, IL
Surface Value, Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, IA
Elizabeth Catlett: Call and Response, Bronx Museum of Art, Bronx, NY
Pattern ID, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO
2010 XX-XY/Gender Representation in Art, Orlando
Museum of Art, Orlando, FL
Now WHAT?, Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL
Sharon Stone in Abuja, Location One, New York, NY
4 Eccentrics, The Proposition, New York, NY
Summer Surprises, Pennsylvania Academy of
Fine Arts, Pennsylvania, PA
Inspired, Steven Kasher Gallery, New York, NY
The Global Africa Project, The Museum of
Arts and Design, New York, NY
Americans Now, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC
Pattern ID, Akron Art Museum, Akron, OH; Kemper
Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO
Versus, Hous Projects, New York, NY
Collected: Reflections on the Permanent Collection, The Studio
Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
Shrew’d: The Smart & Sassy Survey of American Women Artists,
Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, NE
Posing Beauty, Art Gallery of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; Williams
College Museum of Art, Williamstown, MA
Searching for the Heart of Black Identity: Art and the Contemporary
African American Experience, Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft,
Louisville, KY
40, Texas Gallery, Houston, TX
2009 Landscape Revisited, Park Avenue Armory, New York, NY
Extended Family: Contemporary Connections, Brooklyn Museum,
Brooklyn, NY Posing Beauty, New York University, Tisch School of the
Arts, New York, NY The Female Gaze: Women Looking at Women,
Cheim & Read, New York, NY
Dress Codes: The Third ICP Triennial of Photography and Video, The
International Center of Photography, New York, NY
Creating Identity: Portraits Today, 21c Museum Hotel, Louisville, KY
Big Apple, Galerie Nordine Zidoun, Paris, France
Undercover: Performing and Transforming Black Female Identities, The
Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, Atlanta, GA
The Glamour Project, Lehmann Maupin, New York, NY
2008 30 Americans, Rubell Family Collection, Miami, FL
Group Show, Andréhn-Schiptjenko, Stockholm, Sweden
21: Selections of Contemporary Art from the Brooklyn Museum,
Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
As Others See Us: The Contemporary Portrait, Brattleboro Museum
and Art Center, Brattleboro, VT
The Other Mainstream II: Selections from the Collection of Mikki and
Stanley Weithorn, Arizona State University Museum of Art, Tempe AZ
Becoming: Photographs from the Wedge Collection, Museum of
Contemporary Art, Detroit, MI
Black Is, Black Ain’t, The Renaissance Society, Chicago, IL
City Stage New Orleans Contemporary Art Center, New Orleans, LA
Perverted by Theater, apexart, New York, NY
2007 Sweet SweetBack’s Baadasssss Song, Von Lintel Gallery, New York,
NY Commemorating 30 Years 1976—2007 Part Three 1991—2007,
Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago IL
Distinctive Messenger, House of Campari, New York, NY
Sex in the City, Dumbo Arts Center, Brooklyn, NY
Taking Aim, Rhodes College, Memphis, TN
Some Kind of Portrait, Marc Selwyn Fine Art, Los Angeles, CA
Flava, Wedge Curatorial Projects, Toronto, Canada
Prime Time, Caren Golden Fine Art Gallery, New York, NY My Love Is a
187, Luggage Store Gallery, San Francisco, CA Inspired in New York,
Echo Gallery, New York, NY
2006 Not An Ocean Between Us: Voices of Women From African and the
African Diaspora, Winston Salem State University, Winston Salem, NC
Lag Time Line Up, Mumbo Jumbo Gallery, New York, NY
Materiality, Kravets/Wehby Gallery, New York, NY
Wild Girls, Exit Art, New York, NY
The Pulse of New Brooklyn, MoCADA Museum, Brooklyn, NY
Do You Think I’m Disco, Longwood Art Gallery, Bronx, NY
2005 NeoVernacular, Steve Turner Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Five Artists, Five Projects, Wertz Contemporary, Atlanta, GA
Frequency, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
Tête-à-Tête, Greenberg Van Doren Gallery, New York, NY Maximum
Flavor, Atlanta College of Art Gallery, Atlanta, GA Greater New York
2005, MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY African Queen, Studio Museum in
Harlem, New York, NY
2004 Me, Myself and I, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL Glamour,
Glory and Gold, The Proposition Gallery, New York, NY Seeds and
Roots, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
It’s About Memory, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, IL
2003 Beauty, Kravets/Wehby Gallery, New York, NY
Pantone, Massimo Audiello Gallery, New York, NY
Because I’m Worth It, Chelsea Art Museum, New York, NY
Hands on Hands Down, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
Public Collections
21c Museum
The Akron Art Museum
Allentown Art Museum
The Art Institute of Chicago
Baltimore Museum of Art
Bowdoin College Museum of Art
Brooklyn Museum
Carnegie Museum of Art
Detroit Institute of Arts
Everson Museum of Art
George Eastman House
Girls Club
The Guggenheim Museum
Hammer Museum
Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
Herbert F. Johnson Museum, Cornell University
High Museum of Art
Honolulu Museum of Art
The International Center of Photography
Kalamazoo Institute of Arts
Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art
Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester
Milwaukee Art Museum
Minneapolis Institute of Art
Montclair Art Museum
Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago
The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
The Museum of Modern Art
MoMA PS1
Montclair Art Museum
Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University
National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art
The Newark Museum
New York Public Library
North Carolina Museum of Art
Norton Museum of Art
NSU Art Museum
Philadelphia Academy of Fine Art
Pizzuti Collection
Portland Art Museum
The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art
The Rubell Family Collection
Saint Louis Art Museum, St. Louis, MO
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The Seattle Museum of Art
Sender Collection
Sheldon Museum of Art
The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
The Studio Museum of Harlem
Taschen Collection
Telfair Museums
The Mikki and Stanley Weithorn Collection
Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC
West Collection
Westermoreland Museum of Art, Greensburg, PA
Whitney Museum of American Art
Worcester Art Museum
Yale University
Residencies
2015 Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO
2013 Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Madison, ME
2011 The Versailles Foundation Munn Artists Program, Giverny, France
2010 Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Aspen, CO
Durham Press, Durham, PA
2003 Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
2001 Vermont Studios Center, Johnson, VT
1999 Yale Norfolk Summer of Music and Art, Norfolk, CT
Honors and Distinction
2015 USA Francie Bishop Good & David Horvitz Fellow
MoAD: Distinguished Contemporary Artist Award, San Francisco, CA
MoMA PS1 Honoree, New York, NY
AICA-USA Award: Best Show in a Commercial Space Nationally,
Kavi Gupta, Chicago
MoCADA: Artistic Advocacy Award, Brooklyn, NY
BOMB Magazine: 34th Anniversary Honoree, New York, NY
2013 Anonymous Was A Woman Award
2012 Asher B. Duran Award, Brooklyn Museum of Art
2010 Timerhi Award for Leadership in the Arts
2009 Joan Mitchell Foundation Grant
Pratt Institute Alumni Achievement Award
2007 Rema Hort Mann Grant
2002 Barry Cohen Scholarship, Yale University
2001 Paul Harper Fellowship, Yale University
2000 Presidential Merit Scholarship, Yale University
1999 Elizabeth Stokel Battell Fellowship, Yale University