Lubaina Himid
Installation view, Make Do and Mend, The Contemporary Austin, 2024. Photo: Alex Boeschenstein
For more than four decades, Lubaina Himid has created paintings, drawings and installations that uncover and celebrate marginalised histories, figures, and cultural expressions. Her work frequently redresses the art historical canon as a means to probe the (in)visibility of the Black body in the Western pictorial tradition. Countering such selective histories and narratives, her work presents stories, characters and voices through vibrant colours, lively forms, rich imagery, and diverse references from poetry.
Surprise Navigation, 2023, acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 183 x 183 cm
Installation view, So Many Dreams, Musée cantonal des beaux‑arts Lausanne, 2022 – 2023. Photo: Jonas Hänggi
Installation view, So Many Dreams, Musée cantonal des beaux‑arts Lausanne, 2022 – 2023. Photo: Jonas Hänggi
Installation view, So Many Dreams, Musée cantonal des beaux‑arts Lausanne, 2022 – 2023. Photo: Jonas Hänggi
Installation view, So Many Dreams, Musée cantonal des beaux‑arts Lausanne, 2022 – 2023. Photo: Jonas Hänggi
Sometimes you don’t know what you’re getting until it’s too late, 2020, acrylic and charcoal on canvas, 244 x 183 cm
As with many interior scenes painted by Lubaina Himid, in Sometimes you don’t know what you’re getting until it’s too late (2020) Himid composes a group portrait blending a provisional sense of comfort and safety with a portentous, encroaching danger. A figure, occupying the centre of the painting, stands beside a kitchenette and holds a goldfinch.
Himid’s frequent inclusion of bird species gestures to their necessary pattern of migration, yet the goldfinch is also notable for its religious symbolism — understood as representing foreknowledge of the crucifixion, the goldfinch is often considered a ‘saviour’ bird as well as an emblem of endurance. In this instance, Himid’s goldfinch designates both a messenger of threatening augury and symbol of resilience, intensified by the figure’s protective handling and guarded gaze. Reinforcing this invisible jeopardy, two figures on the left of the composition hold one another and observe a passing event from an open window. Their posture suggests they are bidding farewell, withstanding the affects of enforced displacement. With its atmosphere of veracity, risk, loss, and persistence, Sometimes you don’t know what you’re getting until it’s too late continues Himid’s assertion of the fraught, complex and concealed histories of colonialism and the diaspora, making visible Black experience through a practice which sustains depiction, remembrance, exchange and transformation.
The Sweet Sharp Taste of Limes, 2017 – 2018, acrylic on banjo case, 38.5 x 99 x 14.5 cm
The Operating Table, 2019, acrylic on canvas, 152 x 152 cm
The Operating Table, is a continuation of a body of work comprising Six Tailors and Three Architects, (both 2019). In this painting, three women of colour are depicted in action, working together but not necessarily in agreement. As with Six Tailors and Three Architects, this work engages with the tradition of history painting in the Western canon, a genre in which epic and heroic scenes of European men are predominant. Himid’s work in this series ushers in diverse, active protagonists, expanding the gamut of narratives in painting.
Man in a Pyjama Drawer, 2021, acrylic on found wooden drawer, 54 x 46 x 5 cm
There Could Be an Endless Ocean, 2018, acrylic on paper, 77 x 107 x 3 cm [framed]
We Were Always Saying Goodbye, 2018, acrylic on paper, 77 x 107 x 3 cm [framed]
How Do You Spell Change?, 2018, acrylic on paper, 77 x 107 x 3 cm [framed]
Himid’s Kanga series draws from ‘kangas’—vibrant cotton rectangular fabric traditionally worn by East African women as a shawl, head scarf, baby carrier, and many other ways. Addressing the kangas’ association with identity and personal styling, Himid’s works are emblazoned with evocative slogans, bold patterns and vibrant colours.
Metal Handkerchiefs, 2019, acrylic paint on nine metal sheets, 49 x 53.5 cm [each]. Installation view, So Many Dreams, Musée cantonal des beaux‑arts Lausanne, 2022 – 2023. Photo: Jonas Hänggi
Hammer/Anchor from Metal Handkerchiefs, 2019, acrylic paint on nine metal sheets, 49 x 53.5 cm [detail]
Saw/Flag from Metal Handkerchiefs, 2019, acrylic paint on nine metal sheets, 49 x 53.5 cm [detail]
Hinge/Hook from Metal Handkerchiefs, 2019, acrylic paint on nine metal sheets, 49 x 53.5 cm [detail]
Right: Old Boat / New Money, 2019, acrylic on thirty-two wooden planks, 457 x 9.5 x 2 cm [each]. Installation view, Lubaina Himid, Tate Modern, 2021 – 2022. Photo: © Tate (Sam Day)
Old Boat / New Money, 2019, acrylic on thirty-two wooden planks, 457 x 9.5 x 2 cm [each]. Installation view, So Many Dreams, Musée cantonal des beaux‑arts Lausanne, 2022 – 2023. Photo: Jonas Hänggi
Old Boat / New Money, 2019, acrylic on thirty-two wooden planks, 457 x 9.5 x 2 cm [each, detail]
Old Boat / New Money (2019) is an installation of thirty-two leaning wooden planks in varying shades of grey. The ship-like arrangement and the painted cowry shells evoke histories of the transatlantic slave trade, and more broadly the invisible legacies of colonial exploitation that remain inscribed in art and architecture.
British Fish (Feast Wagon), 2015, acrylic on wood, 160 x 220 x 100 cm
British Fish (Feast Wagon), 2015, acrylic on wood, 160 x 220 x 100 cm [detail]
Chased Whip Scorpion (Feast Wagon), 2015, acrylic on wood, 140 x 95 x 145 cm
Chased Whip Scorpion (Feast Wagon), 2015, acrylic on wood, 140 x 95 x 145 cm [detail]
Five Conversations, 2019. Part of En Plein Air. A High Line Commission. Photo by Timothy Schenck. Courtesy of Friends of the High Line.
Five Conversations, 2019. Part of En Plein Air. A High Line Commission. Photo by Timothy Schenck. Courtesy of Friends of the High Line.
Five Conversations, 2019, acrylic on found wooden doors, installation view, Frieze Sculpture 2020, London
Five Conversations, 2019, acrylic on found wooden doors, installation view, Frieze Sculpture 2020, London
Five Conversations, 2019, acrylic on found wooden doors, installation view, Frieze Sculpture 2020, London
Swallow Hard: The Lancaster Dinner Service, 2007, acrylic paint on porcelain, dimensions variable. Installation view, Invisible Strategies, Modern Art Oxford, 2017. Photo: Ben Westoby
Swallow Hard: The Lancaster Dinner Service, 2007, acrylic paint on porcelain [detail]
Swallow Hard: The Lancaster Dinner Service, 2007, acrylic paint on porcelain [detail]
Swallow Hard: The Lancaster Dinner Service, 2007, acrylic paint on porcelain [detail]
Lubaina Himid, Naming the Money, 2004. Installation view, Navigation Charts, Spike Island, Bristol, 2017. Photo: Stuart Whipps
Lubaina Himid, Naming the Money, 2004. Installation view, Navigation Charts, Spike Island, Bristol, 2017. Photo: Stuart Whipps
Lubaina Himid, Naming the Money, 2004. Installation view, Navigation Charts, Spike Island, Bristol, 2017. Photo: Stuart Whipps
Lubaina Himid, Naming the Money, 2004. Installation view, Navigation Charts, Spike Island, Bristol, 2017. Photo: Stuart Whipps
Lubaina Himid, Naming the Money, 2004. Installation view, Navigation Charts, Spike Island, Bristol, 2017. Photo: Stuart Whipps
Lubaina Himid, Naming the Money, 2004. Installation view, Navigation Charts, Spike Island, Bristol, 2017. Photo: Stuart Whipps
Naming the Money, 2004, is an installation composed of 100 cut-outs – figurative paintings created on freestanding, shaped board that allow viewers to walk among them. The cut-out figures in this work represent African slaves in the royal courts of 18th century Europe, put to work in such roles as ceramicists, herbalists, toy makers, dog trainers, shoemakers, map makers and painters. A soundtrack gives voice to the figures, which relay their fluid identities shaped by, and formed in reaction to, global political and economic powers.
A Fashionable Marriage, 1986, multimedia installation, dimensions variable, installation view, The Place is Here, Nottingham Contemporary, 2017. © Nottingham Contemporary
A Fashionable Marriage, 1986, multimedia installation, dimensions variable, installation view, The Place is Here, Nottingham Contemporary, 2017. © Nottingham Contemporary
A Fashionable Marriage, 1986, multimedia installation, dimensions variable, installation view, The Place is Here, Nottingham Contemporary, 2017. © Nottingham Contemporary
A Fashionable Marriage, 1986, multimedia installation, dimensions variable, installation view, The Place is Here, Nottingham Contemporary, 2017. © Nottingham Contemporary
Himid’s installation A Fashionable Marriage, 1986, is based on British artist William Hogarth’s 1734 satirical work Marriage a la Mode, which attempted to expose the greed, fashionable excesses and exploitation of affluent 18th century London life. With equal wit, Himid’s installation quotes the compositions in Hogarth’s work to deliver a critique of London’s art scene of the 1980s.
EXHIBITIONS
EXHIBITIONS AT HOLLYBUSH GARDENS
TEXTS
The Colourful Provocations of Artist Lubaina Himid
Vogue, 26 September 2024
Review: Lubaina Himid at The Contemporary Austin
ASAP Journal, 5 September 2024
Lubaina Himid with Dr. Omar Kholeif
The Brooklyn Rail, May 2024
Lubaina Himid on ‘Thinking, Feeling, and Holding Back’
Ocula, 10 April 2024
Lubaina Himid at The Contemporary Austin
Artnet, 18 March 2024
Lubaina Himid at Glyndebourne
The Guardian, 8 June 2023
Review: Lubaina Himid at Tate Modern
Review by Zehra Jumabhoy, Artforum, Vol. 60 No. 10, Summer 2022
Lubaina Himid
Feature interview by Charlotte Higgins, The Guardian, 20 November 2021
For Her, Not Me: A department store half-remembered, half-imagined
Contribution by Lubaina Himid, Frieze, No. 222, October 2021
Review: Risquons-Tout at Wiels
Review by Amanda Sarroff, Artforum, Vol. 29 No. 4, January-February 2021
Lubaina Himid: Labor and the Art of Becoming
Review by Antwaun Sargent, The New York Review of Books, 27 December 2019
Review: Lubaina Himid at Frans Hals Museum
Review by Nina Siegal, Artnet, 26 November 2019
Theatricality and Satire in Lubaina Himid’s A Fashionable Marriage
Essay by Mora J. Beauchamp-Byrd, Burlington Contemporary Journal, Issue 2, November 2019
Profiles: Lubaina Himid
Profile by Kadish Morris, Frieze, 2 June 2018
Review: Lubaina Himid at Modern Art Oxford
Review by Lauren Dyer Amazeen, Artforum, Vol. 55 No. 9, May 2017
Lubaina Himid: Revision
Essay by Hannah Black, Afterall, Spring/Summer 2017
Lubaina Himid’s Conversations and Voices
Essay by Griselda Pollock, Afterall, Spring/Summer 2017
Influences: Lubaina Himid
Essay by Lubaina Himid, Frieze, No. 184, January-February 2017
Interview
Interview by Imelda Barnard, APOLLO, 17 January 2017
Lubaina Himid at Modern Art Oxford and Spike Island
Review by Lizzie Lloyd, Artnet, 24 January 2017
British Artist Lubaina Himid
Interview by Rachel Spence, Financial Times, 20 January 2017
How the Works of Lubaina Himid Speak to Trump’s Times
Interview by Hettie Judah, The Guardian, 18 January 2017
A Fashionable Marriage
Essay by Lubaina Himid, from The Other Hogarth: Aesthetics of Difference, edited by Bernadette Fort and Angela Rosenthal (Princeton University Press, 2001)
VIDEOS
BIOGRAPHY
Lubaina Himid CBE RA (b. 1954, Zanzibar) lives and works in Preston, UK, and is Emeritus Professor of Contemporary Art at the University of Central Lancashire. She is the winner of the 2017 Turner Prize, the 2023 Maria Lassnig Prize and the 2024 Suzanne Deal Booth | Flag Art Foundation Prize. In 2026, Himid will represent the UK at the Venice Biennale.
Himid has exhibited extensively in the UK and internationally. Upcoming solo exhibitions include Another Chance Encounter with Magda Stawarska, Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge, UK. Significant solo exhibitions include: Nets for Night and Day, Mudam, Luxembourg; UCCA, Beijing (2025); Barricades, Hollybush Gardens, London; Make Do and Mend, FLAG Art Foundation, New York and The Contemporary Austin, Texas (2024); Plaited Time / Deep Water, Sharjah Art Foundation, UAE (2023); Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts de Lausanne (2022); Tate Modern, London (2021). Water Has a Perfect Memory, Hollybush Gardens, London (2022); Spotlights, Tate Britain, London (2019); The Grab Test, Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem, The Netherlands (2019); Lubaina Himid, CAPC Bordeaux, France (2019); Work From Underneath, New Museum, New York (2019); Gifts to Kings, MRAC Languedoc Roussillon Midi-Pyrénées, Sérignan (2018); Our Kisses are Petals, BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead (2018); The Truth Is Never Watertight, Badischer Kunstverein, Karlsruhe (2017); Navigation Charts, Spike Island, Bristol (2017); and Invisible Strategies, Modern Art Oxford (2017).
Selected group exhibitions include The Time is Always Now, North Carolina Museum of Art, USA (2025); Philadelphia Museum of Art, USA; The Box, Plymouth, National Portrait Gallery, London (2024); Conversations, The Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (2024); Entangled Pasts, 1768–now, Royal Academy, London (2024) A Fine Toothed Comb, HOME, Manchester; Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present (both 2023); Rewinding Internationalism, Scenes from the ‘90s, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, Netherlands; When We See Us, Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town, South Africa; Globalisto, Musée d’art moderne et contemporain de Saint-Étienne Métropole, Saint-Priest-en-Jarez, France (all 2022); Happy Mechanics, Hollybush Gardens, London, UK; Life Between Islands: Caribbean-British Art 50s-Now, Tate Britain, London, UK; Lubaina Himid – Lost Threads, The British Textile Biennial, The Great Barn, Gawthorpe Hall, Padiham, Burmley, UK; Mixing It Up: Painting Today, Hayward Gallery, London; Relations: Diaspora and Painting, Esker Foundation, Calgary, Canada; Invisible Narratives 2, Yamamoto Keiko Rochaix, London; Unsettled Objects, Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah (all 2021); Frieze Sculpture, London; Risquons-Tout, WIELS, Contemporary Art Centre, Brussels; Slow Painting, Hayward Touring UK travelling exhibition (all 2020); En Plein Air, The High Line, New York (2019–2020); Sharjah Biennial 14, UAE (2019); Glasgow International (2018); Berlin Biennale (2018); The Place is Here, Nottingham Contemporary, UK (2017); Keywords, Tate Liverpool (2014); and Burning Down the House, Gwangju Biennale (2014).
Her work is held in various museum and public collections, including Tate, London, UK; Museum Ludwig, Cologne, Germany; Guggenheim New York, USA; Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, UAE; Baltimore Museum of Art, USA; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, USA; Sharjah Art Foundation, Sharjah, UAE; Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne, Switzerland; Rennie Collection, Vancouver; Canada; British Council Collection, UK; Arts Council Collection, UK; UK Government Art Collection; Victoria & Albert Museum, London, UK; National Museums Liverpool, Liverpool, UK; Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK; and Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, USA. In 2019, a monograph, titled Lubaina Himid: Workshop Manual, was published by Koenig Books.