Lubaina Himid

Lubaina Himid CBE was born in Zanzibar in 1954 and moved to the UK the same year. Throughout her career she has lived in Preston, Lancashire and she is now Professor of Contemporary Art at the University of Lancashire. She trained as a theatre designer and is known for her large cut out sculptures and bold paintings that challenge traditional depictions of people of colour in British art history. In 2017 she became the first woman of colour to win the Turner Prize.

Throughout her career Himid has examined the discrimination confronting black women artists and speaks of how black women are made ‘doubly invisible’ in culture. Attempting to ‘paint the world into a better place’, she celebrates black creativity and reclaims black images appropriated by European artists.

In Spinster Salt’s Collection (1989) and Sour Grapes (1989) are from ‘The Wing Museum’ (1989) series, an imaginary touring exhibition of black cultural objects. In Spinster’s Salt’s Collection features an ancient Egyptian mirror and a pair of sistra instruments used in dance and religious ceremonies in the worship of the ancient Egyptian goddess Hathor. The idea of ‘The Wing Museum’ and the objects it contains is intended as both a homage to Black creativity and a critique of the way Western museums treat and display African artefacts.