“The Generosity” (2010) by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
THE FIRST MAJOR SURVEY of Lynette Yiadom-Boakye will be presented at Tate Britain next year. Spanning Yiadom-Boakye’s entire career to date, the monographic survey will be on view from May to August 2020. Known for her timeless portraits of fictional characters, Yiadom-Boakye made the shortlist for the Turner Prize in 2013. She lives and works in London.
Tate Britain made the announcement March 1 along with news that solo exhibitions with four more women artists are in the works for 2020 and 2021. The London museum timed the roll-out to coordinate with the launch of #5WomenArtists, an international initiative organized by the National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) in Washington, D.C. Designed to draw attention to women artists, the social media campaign occurs annually during Women’s History Month in March.
A British-born artist with Ghanaian roots, Yiadom-Boakye is one of six artists exhibiting in the inaugural Ghana Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale opening May 11. British Ghanaian architect David Adjaye is designing the space at the international exhibition where work by Yiadom-Boakye, along with Felicia Abban, John Akomfrah, El Anatsui, Ibrahim Mahama, and Selasi Awusi Sosu, will be presented.
Last October, Yiadom-Boakye won the top prize at the Carnegie International. She made 13 new paintings for the biennial-style exhibition, which remains on view at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh through March 25. Earlier this year, “Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: In Lieu Of A Louder Love” was presented at Jack Shainman in New York City. The painter has been represented by the gallery since 2010.
Andrea Schlieker, director of exhibitions and displays, is curating Yiadom-Boakye’s Tate Britain survey. The exhibition will be mounted in the main floor galleries where the Don McCullin exhibition is currently on view and where the Frank Bowling retrospective opens this summer.
Lynette Yiadom-Baokye made the shortlist for the Turner Prize in 2013 and won the top prize at the Carnegie International last October.
Given women are overwhelmingly underrepresented in museum exhibitions and collections, the #5WomenArtists campaign asks “Can you name five women artists?” The initiative encourages greater awareness of women artists and NMWA is challenging institutions to go beyond symbolic participation and take steps to actually address gender equity issues in the arts.
For its part, Tate also announced a career-spanning retrospective of Portuguese-born, London-based artist Paula Rego in 2021 (Tate Britain); a pair of 2020 exhibitions with Eastern European sculptors Magdalena Abakanowicz and Maria Bartuszová (Tate Modern); and a summer 2020 show featuring South Korean artist Haegue Yang (Tate St. Ives).
Across the institution, additional exhibitions and commissions featuring women artists are planned throughout 2019. Further programming for 2020 will be announced this summer.
Works by both Yiadom-Boakye and Rego were included in “All Too Human: Bacon, Freud and a Century of Painting Life,” a major exhibition at Tate Britain last year. CT
TOP IMAGE: LYNETTE YIADOM-BOAKYE, “The Generosity,” 2010 (oil paint on canvas, 1800 x 2000 mm). | © Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Tate Collection
BOOKSHELF
“Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Under-Song for a Cipher” documents her New Museum exhibition in New York. Published in 2014, “Lynette Yiadom-Boakye” surveyed her career to date. More recently, her first monograph, also titled, “Lynette Yiadom-Boakye” is rife with images of her captivating portraits. “Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Any Number of Preoccupations” was published to coincide with her solo exhibition at the Studio Museum in Harlem.
