Miscegenated Family Album
1980/94
Lorraine O'Grady American, born 1934
United States
As an artist of African, Caribbean, and Irish descent, Lorraine O’Grady has mainly focused on representations of black female subjectivity, often through the lens of family, literary, and art-historical narratives. Her work combats the elimination of difference across a spectrum of social concerns, while championing the positive values of hybridization. Miscegenated Family Album is a series of diptychs, each containing an image of the ancient Egyptian queen Nefertiti paired with a corresponding image of the artist’s deceased sister, Devonia Evangeline O’Grady Allen, or members of their respective families. The physical resemblances between the individuals within any given diptych are sometimes startling. Both families, in fact, reflect the consequences of generations of cross-cultural exchange and interracial marriage.
Sixteen silver dye bleach print diptychs, framed 1) Sisters I (L: Nefertiti, R: Devonia) 2) Sisters II (L: Nefertiti's daughter Merytaten, R: Devonia's daughter Candace) 3) Sisters III (L: Nefertiti's daughter Maketaten, R: Devonia's daughter Kimberley) 4) Sisters IV (L: Devonia's sister Lorraine, R: Nefertiti's sister Mutnedjmet) 5) Ceremonial Occasions I (L: Devonia as Matron of Honor, R: Nefertiti performing a lustration) 6) Ceremonial Occasions II (L: Devonia attending a wedding, R: Nefertiti performing an Aten ritual) 7) A Mother's Kiss (T: Candace and Devonia, B: Nefertiti and daughter) 8) Motherhood (L: Nefertiti, R: Devonia reading to Candace and Edward, Jr.) 9) Young Princesses (L: Nefertiti's daughter Ankhesenpaaten, R: Devonia's daughter Candace) 10) Wordly Princesses (L: Nefertiti's daughter Merytaten, R: Devonia's daughter Kimberley) 11) Crowned Heads (L: Nefertiti's husband Akhenaten, R: Devonia's husband Edward) 12) Young Queens (L: Nefertiti, aged 24, R: Devonia, aged 24) 13) Progress of Queens (L: Devonia, aged 35. R: Nefertiti, aged 36) 14) Cross-Generational (L: Nefertiti, the last image, R: Devonia's daughter Kimberley) 15) Hero Worship (L: Devonia at 14 and Lorraine at 3, R: Devonia at 24 and Lorraine at 13) 16) Sibling Rivalry (L: Nefertiti, R: Nefertiti's sister Mutnedjmet)