Yale exhibition immerses viewers in pre-Emancipation settings
A new exhibition at the Yale University Art Gallery places small-scale portraits of Black Americans from the pre-Emancipation era alongside contemporary works.
By Mike Cummings
Rose Prentice, formerly enslaved, was in her mid-sixties when Sarah Goodridge, a noted miniaturist, painted her portrait.
Born in 1771, Prentice retained the surname of her second enslaver, John Prentice, who likely manumitted her, before or upon his death, in 1808. Decades after securing her freedom, Prentice moved to Boston’s Beacon Hill, where she performed housework for wages in the home of Elizabeth Tucker MacGregor, whom she had helped raise.
Prentice remained in Beacon Hill even after Tucker MacGregor left Boston, a parting, it’s thought, that motivated the miniature’s commission. Tucker MacGregor kept the portrait, which stayed within her family until Yale University Art Gallery acquired it in 2016.
Today, the watercolor-on-ivory miniature is the centerpiece of, and inspiration for, “Mickalene Thomas / Portrait of an Unlikely Space,” a historical-contemporary exhibition at the Gallery. In the exhibition, 30 small-scale portraits of Black Americans from the pre-Emancipation era — miniatures, daguerreotypes, silhouettes, and book engravings — are placed alongside 15 works by present-day artists (including Thomas ’02 M.F.A.) which, like their 19th-century counterparts, are focused on intimate subjects.
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October 20, 2023
