Iconoclastic Conceptual Artist 1934-2024
New York Times
She worked in collage, photography, performance, video and installation, and she dealt forthrightly with the complexities of race and gender…
HyperAllergic
By Rhea Nayyar | December 13, 2024
From her newspaper collages to her performance persona Mademoiselle Bourgeoise Noire, O’Grady subverted hierarchies from a Black feminist perspective…
An Appreciation by Mariane Ibrahim
Lorraine O’Grady (1934–2024) was born in Boston to West Indian parents. A talented scholar, she was educated at the elite Girls Latin School before studying economics and Spanish literature at Wellesley College (class of 1955). While still a student, she passed the US government’s challenging Management Intern Program (MIP) exam and worked as a Research Economist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 1961, O’Grady left her post at the Department of Labor to write fiction, ultimately entering the Iowa Writers Workshop in 1965. By 1968, she was working in Chicago at a commercial translation agency…