business and economy | February 28, 2026

Mickalene Thomas - Net Worth, Age, Height, Birthday, Bio, Wiki!

Explore Mickalene Thomas net worth, age, height, bio, birthday, wiki, and salary! Le dejeuner sur l’herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires is unmistakably based on Edouard Manet’s 1863 painting Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe. Manet’s work, which was controversial at the time, shows two naked women sitting with two formal-dressed men at a picnic. The background shows one nude woman, while the other three subjects are seated in the foreground. The male subject is casually gazing at the viewer while the female subject in front is looking out. In this article, we will discover how old is Mickalene Thomas? Who is Mickalene Thomas dating now & how much money does Mickalene Thomas have?

NameMickalene Thomas
First NameMickalene
Last NameThomas
OccupationAmerican Visual Artist
BirthdayJanuary 28
Birth Year1971
Place of BirthCamden
Home TownNew Jersey
Birth CountryUnited States
Birth SignCapricorn
Full/Birth Name
ParentsSandra Bush
SiblingsNot Available
SpouseNot Known
Children(s)Not Available

Mickalene Thomas Biography

Mickalene Thomas is one of the most popular and richest American visual artist who was born on January 28, 1971 in Camden, New Jersey, United States. Mickalene Thomas was born in Camden, New Jersey on January 28, 1971. She was raised in Hillside, East Orange. Sandra Bush Bush Bush, her mother, raised her. She is 6’1″ tall and was a model in the 1970s. Mickalene and her brother were exposed to art by her mother, Sandra Bush Bush. She enrolled them in after-school programs at Newark Museum and Henry Street Settlement in New York. Thomas’ mother raised her as a Buddhist. Mickalene’s mother and Mickalene had a very close and difficult relationship as a teenager. This was due to Thomas’ drug addiction and Thomas’ handling of Mickalene’s sexuality. She documented this in Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman: Portrait of My Mother.

Thomas lived and attended school in Portland, Oregon, from the mid-1980s to the early ’90s, studying pre-law and Theater Arts. Thomas received her BFA from Pratt Institute in 2000 and her MFA from Yale School of Art in 2002. Thomas participated in a residency program at the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York from 2000 to 2003. She also participated in a residency in Giverny, France at the Versailles Foundation Munn Artists Program. She currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.

In addition to her paintings, the Brooklyn-based Thomas works in the mediums of photography, collage, printmaking, video art, sculpture and installation art. Her works, in particular the Odalisque series (2007), have been interpreted as “investigating the artist-model relationship […] but from an updated perspective of female inter-subjectivity and same-sex desire.” (La Leçon d’amour, 2008) She has restaged themes and symbolism with a long lineage in Western art in her references to the odalisque representation of women in exotic settings. She experimented with institutional images in FBI/Serial Portraits (2008), based on mug shots of African-American women. In 2012, Mickalene Thomas: Origin of the Universe, her first major solo museum exhibition, opened at the Santa Monica Museum of Art and traveled to the Brooklyn Museum. This show, the title of which references Gustave Courbet’s 1866 painting L’Origine du monde, showcased a series of recent portraits, landscapes and interiors.

Thomas’ painting shows three women of color in the foreground. They are dressed in brightly colored dresses that recall the 1970s and their gazes are directed at the viewer. Thomas’ work features a Matisse sculpture as the woman in Manet’s background. She positioned the models in the photo taken at the MoMA sculpture gardens. Thomas isn’t unusual in paying homage to Matisse using his sculpture in her piece. She often makes allusions to the famous artist in her work. Thomas has mentioned Romare Bearden among her influences. These explicit allusions aside, Le dejeuner à l’herbe : Les Trois Femmes Noires is among many Thomas’ pieces that are inspired by Dada, cubism and the Harlem Renaissance.

Klaus Biesenbach, MoMA curator, originally commissioned Thomas to paint the 53rd Street window display. He explained that Thomas’s treatment of surfaces, which included lacquer, paint, and rhinestone, corresponds with the libidinous nature she depicts.

Mickalene Thomas (born January 28, 1971) is a contemporary African-American visual artist best known as a painter of complex works using rhinestones, acrylic, and enamel. Thomas’s collage work is inspired from popular art histories and movements, including Impressionism, Cubism, Dada and the Harlem Renaissance. Her work draws from Western art history, pop art and visual culture to examine ideas around femininity, beauty, race, sexuality, and gender.

Mickalene Thomas Net Worth

Mickalene is one of the richest American visual artist from United States. According to our analysis, Wikipedia, Forbes & Business Insider, Mickalene Thomas's net worth $5 Million. (Last Update: January 13, 2024)

Le dejeuner sur l’herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires is a painting created by African-American visual artist Mickalene Thomas. The painting’s title is translated from French to mean The luncheon on a grass: The Three Black Women. This painting is a modern interpretation of Edouard Manet’s 1863 painting Le dejeuner on l’herbe. Thomas’ painting depicts three black women with radiant Afro-styled hair, rich colors, and vintage patterned clothing. Although the women’s poses and positioning are reminiscent of Manet, the strong gazes of each woman are focused on the viewer. Thomas, who created the painting, which was her largest at the time, was commissioned by The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City, to create a display piece in the 53rd Street window of The Modern’s restaurant.

Net Worth$5 Million
SalaryUnder Review
Source of IncomeAmerican visual artist
CarsNot Available
HouseLiving in own house.

Thomas has held residencies at Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Madison, Maine (2013) (resident faculty); Versailles Foundation Munn Artists Program, Giverny, France (2011); Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Aspen, Colorado (2010); Studio Museum in Harlem (2003); Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, Vermont (2001); and Yale Norfolk Summer of Music and Art, Norfolk, Connecticut (1999).

Thomas has collaborated with musician Solange, creating the cover art for her 2013 EP True. The cover began as a portrait of Solange the artist herself commissioned. Thomas and Solange also collaborated on a trailer for the music video for the song “Losing You.”

Ethnicity, religion & political views

Many peoples want to know what is Mickalene Thomas ethnicity, nationality, Ancestry & Race? Let's check it out! As per public resource, IMDb & Wikipedia, Mickalene Thomas's ethnicity is Not Known. We will update Mickalene Thomas's religion & political views in this article. Please check the article again after few days.

Her depictions of African-American women explore notions of celebrity and identity while engaging with the representation of black femininity and black power. Inhabiting the ’70s-style genre of Blaxploitation, the subjects in Thomas’s paintings and collages radiate sexuality, which has been interpreted by some as satire of misogynistic and racist tropes in media, including films and music associated with the Blaxploitation genre. Women in provocative poses dominate the picture plane and are surrounded by decorative patterns inspired by her childhood as in Left Behind 2 Again from 2012, in the collection of the Honolulu Museum of Art. Her subjects are often well-known women like Eartha Kitt, Whitney Houston, Oprah Winfrey, and Condoleezza Rice. Her portrait of Michelle Obama was the first individual portrait done of the First Lady and was exhibited in the National Portrait Gallery’s Americans Now show.

Who is Mickalene Thomas Dating?

According to our records, Mickalene Thomas is possibily single & has not been previously engaged. As of January 13, 2024, Mickalene Thomas’s is not dating anyone.

Relationships Record: We have no records of past relationships for Mickalene Thomas. You may help us to build the dating records for Mickalene Thomas!

The subjects of the painting are three rhinestone-studded, richly dressed women of color. The models who are the subjects of the original Le déjeuner sur l’herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires photograph are all friends of Thomas which is common across many of her photographs. All three women are fully clothed– compared to the nude female subjects in Manet’s version of the scene– in richly patterned dresses that Thomas herself designed, and they sit upon fabrics staged by the artists. Many vintage patterns are used throughout the work. Thomas claims that this juxtaposition of patterns serves to represent the “amalgamation of all of the different things we are as Americans.” Behind the women in both the photograph and the painting sits a Matisse sculpture that was situated behind the women in the sculpture garden.

Height, Weight & Body Measurements

Mickalene Thomas height Not available right now. Mickalene weight Not Known & body measurements will update soon.

HeightUnknown
WeightNot Known
Body MeasurementsUnder Review
Eye ColorNot Available
Hair ColorNot Available
Feet/Shoe SizeNot Available

Thomas’s work is also distinctive in its foregrounding of queer identity; she is a queer woman of color representing women of color in a way that emphasizes their agency and erotic beauty. By emphasizing the women’s striking presence and sensuality along with their assertive gazes, Thomas empowers these subjects, representing them as resilient, stunning women who command the spectator’s attention. The sitters have the control and power of the gaze, and when this exchange is between women, it subverts the traditional dominance of the male gaze in art and visual culture. Thomas’s queer identity is foregrounded, for example, in her painting and print edition entitled Sleep: Deux femmes noires (2012 and 2013), in which we see two female bodies intertwined in an embrace, on a sofa, thus highlighting for her audience the femininity, beauty, and sexuality of women lovers.

Her short film Happy Birthday to a Beautiful Woman, created for her exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, is about Sandra Bush, her mother and longtime muse. In it, Sandra talks about careers, relationships, beauty, and her fatal illness. The film made its television debut on HBO on February 24, 2014, and has run regularly since.

Facts & Trivia

Mickalene Ranked on the list of most popular American visual artist. Also ranked in the elit list of famous people born in United States. Mickalene Thomas celebrates birthday on January 28 of every year.

Thomas’s subjects are virtually always women of color; a means to portray and empower the women and celebrate their culture and beauty—sometimes by incorporating them into iconic Western paintings. As a member of, and inspired by, the Post-Black Art movement, Thomas’ work redefines perceptions of race, gender, and sexuality. Thomas blurs the distinction between object and subject, concrete and abstract, real and imaginary. Her subjects often look directly at the viewer, challenging the dominance of the male gaze in art. This assertive portrayal indicates that the models are at ease in their own skin, thus challenging the stereotype of the silent and inferior woman objectified by the viewer’s gaze. In addition, seemingly insignificant decisions (like not straightening the figures’ hair) have the important effect of encouraging women of color to accept themselves as they are and not conform to a particular ideology of beauty imposed by society.

What is mickalene Thomas known for?

Mickalene Thomas (American, born 1971 ) Mickalene Thomas (American, b. 1971) is a New York-based artist who is best known for her elaborate rhinestone-adorned paintings as well as her use of colorful acrylic paints.

Who is mickalene Thomas represented by?

Mickalene Thomas is represented by Lehmann Maupin, New York and Hong Kong; Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago and Berlin; Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects; and Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris and Brussels. She was born in 1971 in New Jersey and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Where does mickalene Thomas live now?

Mickalene Thomas (b. 1971, Camden, NJ; lives and works in Brooklyn, NY) makes paintings, collages, photography, video, and installations that draw on art history and popular culture to create a contemporary vision of female sexuality, beauty, and power.

How old is mickalene Thomas?

51 years (January 28, 1971)

Why does mickalene Thomas Use bright patterns in her work?

Growing up in the 1970s, Thomas drew inspiration from the bright colors and patterns from her childhood in her art.

You may read full biography about Mickalene Thomas from Wikipedia.