Progress of Queens (L: Devonia, age 36; R: Nefertiti, age 36)

Artist Lorraine O'Grady (American, born 1934)

Date1980/1994

Mediumtwo Cibachrome prints

Dimensions66 x 94 cm (26 x 37 in.)

ClassificationsPhotographs

Credit LineStoddard Acquisition Fund

Terms

Object number2010.25

Label TextLorraine O’Grady, an artist of African, Caribbean, and Irish descent, began the Miscegenated Family Album, a series of 16 diptychs in which she paired photographs of women in her family with published photographs of ancient Egyptian sculpture, “as a memorial to my older sister, Devonia, who died unexpectedly at the age of 37 before we could reconcile our troubled relationship. There was a parallel with Queen Nefertiti, who disappeared from Egyptian history when she was 36, perhaps banished when her husband Akhenaten took another wife.” In these two pairings of Devonia and Nefertiti at ages 24 and 36, the physical resemblances and similarities in light, pose, and gesture are uncanny. Both families, in fact, reflect the consequences of generations of cross-cultural exchange and interracial marriage. While the busts of Nefertiti add stature and historical context to the portraits of O’Grady’s sister, the contemporary photographs animate and personalize the subject of the ancient busts—an individual typically forced to represent the significance of African culture. O’Grady’s portrait pairings point to individual histories, entire cultures, and the complicated relationships found in every family while demonstrating not only how history continues to influence our present experience but also how contemporary issues determine what we value from the past. "Us Them We": Lorraine O’Grady employs diptychs, or pairings of images, that investigate black diaspora, family, and female subjectivity. Miscegenated Family Album was developed out of a 1980 performance O’Grady dedicated to her older sister Devonia who died at age thirty-seven. The title of the album refers to US laws that criminalized mixed-race marriages into the late 1960s. Each of the album’s sixteen diptychs juxtaposes a member of O’Grady’s family, usually her sister, with the Egyptian queen Nefertiti and her family (1370–30 BCE). O’Grady saw a striking resemblance between her sister and the young queen who disappeared from public view around the same age Devonia died. Together, the sixteen pairings serve as a broad commentary on class and the scarcity of depictions of women of color in Western art.ProvenanceAlexander Gray Gallery, New York, NY

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