Lorna Simpson

Lorna Simpson (American, born 1960)

Combining text, photography, and video, Simpson creates works of art that explore the manner in which race and gender are represented in American culture. Many of Simpson’s best known pieces juxtapose ambiguous portraits of African American women with thought-provoking text, intended to spark discussion. In 1993, Simpson became the first African American woman to have art selected for the Venice Biennale. She has earned numerous awards for her work, including a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship in 1985, a Whitney Museum of American Art Award in 2001, and the Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize from the Studio Museum in Harlem in 2006.

Important Source Material:

Lorna Simpson CV from 2013.

Farrington, Lisa E., Creating Their Own Image: The History of African-American Women Artists, Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005

Valdez, Sarah, “Lorna Simpson: Echoes of the Unspoken,” in Art of America, December 2008.

Jones, Kellie, Thelma Golden, Chrissie Iles. Lorna Simpson. New York, NY: Phaidon, 2002.

TAL