All is not as it seems in this monumental portrait by African American artist Robert Pruitt. “Woman with a Tiara” is wearing what appears to be a hinged device instead of the promised tiara. The device, a craniometer, was a tool used in the racist 19th-century pseudoscience of phrenology, which claimed to measure intelligence and personality through cranium shape. Clasped gently around the beautiful Black woman’s head, supported by her own hair rather than the hands of an oppressor, the craniometer becomes a tiara, a symbol of ornamentation, beauty, and power rather than subjugation. Her elegance, beauty, and stature is reinforced by the monumental size of the drawing: Seven feet tall. It rivals famous full-length portraits of kings and queens, leaving the woman to preside with all the grandeur of royalty while wearing a beautiful Issey Miyake dress. Pruitt has said, “Black bodies occupy a contentious space in Western minds, media, and art, and I try to complicate that space.” His charcoal portraits rework iconography from science fiction, history, and popular culture. He also works with sculpture, photography, and animation.

Woman with Tiara by Robert Pruitt (American) - Conté, charcoal, & gold leaf on coffee-stained paper / 2019 - Amon Carter Museum of American Art (Fort Worth, Texas) #womeninart #art #portrait #RobertPruitt #artwork #portraitofawoman #beauty #tiara #TheAmonCarter #AmonCarterMuseumofAmericanArt