A revelatory first look at the painting practice of artist Lorna Simpson, whose work combines abstraction and figuration to highlight issues of identity and representation
 
Though Lorna Simpson (b. 1960) is perhaps best known as a photographer, this publication is the first to examine a significant new development in her work of the last ten years: paintings that advance her incisive explorations of gender, race, and history. These works, midway between photography and painting, combine screen-printed collages of found images with washes of colorful ink on fiberglass, wood, or clayboard. Drawing on documentary photographs and images from vintage Ebony and Jet magazines, Simpson’s paintings include bodies that emerge and disappear, peering from inky surfaces or dissolving into landscapes of melting ice. The texts in this volume explore how Simpson’s fascination with the politics of representation propels her experiments in works that are both figurative and abstract, portraits and landscapes, paintings and photographs.
 
Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press
 
Exhibition Schedule:
 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
(May 19–November 2, 2025)