Young Queens (L: Nefertiti, age 24; R: Devonia, age 24)
Artist
Lorraine O'Grady
(American, born 1934)
Date1980/1994
Mediumtwo Cibachrome prints
Dimensionseach image: 32 × 48 cm (12 5/8 × 18 7/8 in.)
sheet: 66 × 94 cm (26 × 37 in.)
sheet: 66 × 94 cm (26 × 37 in.)
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineStoddard Acquisition Fund
Object number2010.24
Label TextLorraine O’Grady’s concept-based art employs diptychs, or pairings of images, that investigate black diaspora, family and female subjectivity. Comprised of sixteen image pairings, Miscegenated Family Album, developed out of O’Grady’s 1980 performance Nefertiti/Devonia Evangeline, a tribute to her older sister Devonia who died at age thirty-seven. The works in the album juxtapose a member of O’Grady’s family, usually her sister, with the Egyptian queen Nefertiti and her family (1370-1330 BC). O’Grady saw a striking resemblance between her sister and the young Egyptian queen who also disappeared from public view around the same age Devonia died. Though the subject matter of O’Grady’s series is personal, it also broadly comments on class and depictions of people of color in the history of art.ProvenanceAlexander Gray Gallery, New York, NYOn View
Not on view