Lubaina Himid @ Walker Art Gallery

The pieces selected by Lubaina Himid are all by women artists, and occupies one room within the gallery. At the centre of this display is her 1987 series of watercolour drawings, ‘Scenes from the life of Toussaint L’Overture’, about the former slave who led the Haitian revolution. The meticulous detail within this series, and its focus upon some key moments and everyday happenings in L’Ouverture’s life, has inspired Lubaina’s selection of other works by artists including Bridget Riley and Claudette Johnson.
The full installation Naming the Money was gifted by the artist to the International Slavery Museum. It addresses how Europe’s wealthy classes spent their money and flaunted their power in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, by using enslaved African men and women. The highly individual sculptural figures, each with their own profession and life-story, demonstrate how enslavement was disguised and glamorised.