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Lava THomas (The Filled Podcast \/ Wikipedia CC BY SA 4.0)<\/p>\nFORT WORTH \u2014 The Amon Carter Museum of American Art (the Carter) today announced that it will present large-scale drawings and a newly commissioned, artist-designed wallpaper installation by multidisciplinary artist Lava Thomas. The exhibition will be on view in the Museum\u2019s first-floor Sloping Gallery\u2014the space linking the Carter\u2019s original 1961 building and its 2001 expansion. Monumentalizing the presence of historical Black figures, this installation marks the first-ever public display of the Carter\u2019s Mary Everhard Collection, from which Thomas selected historical negatives to create wallpaper depicting Black subjects, community, and culture. Lava Thomas: In Our Own Regard will be on view from November 7, 2026, through November 2027.<\/p>\n
Based in Berkeley, California, Thomas is celebrated for her meticulous draftsmanship and her use of portraiture as a portal to past American lives that were not historically recorded or prioritized in mainstream portraiture practice. Thomas\u2019s drawing is rooted in her personal archive, from which she transforms largely anonymous and ephemeral images into monumental grand-manner portraiture. Lava Thomas: In Our Own Regard centers on Looking Back II (2015), a 6-by-6 foot graphite, cont\u00e9 pencil, charcoal, and watercolor work on paper acquired by the Carter in February 2026; the work depicts a young Black woman dressed elegantly with a large Liberty coin on a velvet ribbon around her neck. Looking Back II exemplifies the artist\u2019s fastidious, labor-intensive draftsmanship and the detailed precision with which she bestows her unnamed subjects an uncanny lifelikeness and embodied presence. The work will be installed on the artist\u2019s wallpaper alongside seven of Thomas\u2019s other large-scale portraits.<\/p>\n
\u201cLava Thomas\u2019s installation exemplifies the Carter\u2019s commitment to connecting important historic collections with the work of artists who expand our understanding of American art,\u201d said Scott Wilcox, Interim Director of the Carter. \u201cBy bringing the Mary Everhard Collection into public view for the first time through Thomas\u2019s powerful artistic vision, this exhibition invites audiences to develop fresh perspectives and deepen their understanding of the people and stories that have shaped American history.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Lava THomas (The Filled Podcast \/ Wikipedia CC BY SA 4.0)<\/p>\n
Thomas derived inspiration for her portraits from her grandmother\u2019s album of black-and-white photographs, transforming images of largely unnamed sitters into monumental and majestic subjects. Early 20th-century vernacular photographs, such as those in Thomas\u2019s grandmother\u2019s album, offer vital views of Black American life during the Jim Crow era, when Black Americans were often caricaturized or erased from mainstream visual culture. Through her powerful drawings, Thomas gives the figures a regal gravitas, granting lasting presence and empowerment to subjects previously unseen and unknown.<\/p>\n
In addition to building upon the Carter\u2019s strong portraiture tradition, Thomas\u2019s installation engages the Mary Everhard Collection, an important institutional archive that has, until now, remained unexhibited and largely unexamined. The collection of 6,000 negatives, which entered the Carter in 1978, contains a significant number of photographic portraits documenting Black communities in early 20th-century Kansas. Both Thomas\u2019s portraiture practice and the Everhard negatives bring \u201cshadow archives\u201d\u2014those collections long overlooked and hidden from public view\u2014into the light.<\/p>\n
While the Mary Everhard Collection illuminates turn-of-the-century life in Kansas, Thomas\u2019s grandmother\u2019s photo album was created in Decatur, Texas, establishing an important connection to Fort Worth\u2019s region and history. Thomas\u2019s portraiture materializes not only individuals, but also the fashion and material culture of North Texas\u2019s middle-class Black communities in the early 20th century. In her drawings, Thomas intervenes in a portrait tradition that has historically excluded Black Americans and reasserts their place in American cultural history.<\/p>\n
\u201cLava Thomas transforms overlooked photographs into profound acts of recognition,\u201d said Michaela Haffner, Assistant Curator of Paintings, Sculpture, and Works on Paper at the Carter. \u201cHer work invites us to encounter individuals whose lives were not often afforded attention within the history of American portraiture. In dialogue with the Mary Everhard Collection, her installation demonstrates how vernacular photography can become a powerful site of memory, presence, and historical recovery, while reclaiming visibility for Black individuals and communities whose stories deserve to be seen.\u201d<\/p>\n
With this exhibition, Thomas joins an esteemed list of artists who have presented site-specific installations in the first-floor gallery space as part of the Carter\u2019s commissioning initiative, which has also featured works from Celia \u00c1lvarez Mu\u00f1oz (2026), Jean Shin (2024-25), Leonardo Drew (2023-24), Stephanie Syjuco (2021-22), Natasha Bowdoin (2020-21), and Justin Favela (2019-20). The \u201cSloping Gallery\u201d initiative, which began in 2019 as a means of reimagining the corridor joining the Carter\u2019s two buildings, provides a venue for the curatorial team to spotlight the work of living artists. While connecting physical spaces, the gallery also bridges past and present, ushering in new work by today\u2019s artists who find inspiration in the Carter\u2019s collection and the American artistic tradition.<\/p>\n
Lava Thomas: In Our Own Regard is organized by the Amon Carter Museum of American Art.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT WORTH \u2014 The Amon Carter Museum of American Art (the Carter) today announced that it will present…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117],"class_list":["post-438793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}