I've Been Good to Me

2015

I've Been Good to Me, 2015. Mickalene Thomas (American, b. 1971), Benefit Print Project (American, 2010-). Mixed media collage with screenprint, mono and digital printing, leopard print paper, wood veneer, and silica flocking; image: 130.5 x 103 cm (51 3/8 x 40 9/16 in.); sheet: 143.5 x 114.3 cm (56 1/2 x 45 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Severance and Greta Millikin Purchase Fund 2020.226 © Mickalene Thomas / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York Mickalene Thomas uses collage to combine art historical and pop cultural references and question societal standards for Black femininity. Combining photography and printmaking, Thomas cultivates the aesthetic of publications such as Jet from the 1960s through 80s. This work features a woman who confidently adapts a pose from Impressionist painter Edouard Manet’s 1862 canvas Luncheon on the Grass. Each element of the collage was individually printed and hand assembled in a process that took over two years to complete. Mickalene Thomas’s interest in Jet and African American fashion publications was influenced by her mother, who dreamed of becoming a model herself.