The Tate opened in 1897. It took until 2021 for a black woman to have a solo show there.
The pioneering artist Lynette Yiadom Boakye was born in London, 1977 to Ghanaian immigrants. She studied Fine Art at St Martins and has been painting ever since. Lynette’s fictional portraits contributed to the 21st century renaissance of the black figure in mainstream art.
The Generosity, 2010
Her figurative oil paintings exist outside of a historical context and place, and are entirely fictional. The paintings are a mixture of her imagination, memory, and found imagery. Their timelessness celebrates Blackness on its own terms. They are about feeling, and how we have empathy with her portraits.
Lynette’s timeless and radical portraits continue to break through a historically white art world.
All that we may afford, 2006
Magret de Canard, 2005
First, 2004
