Lubaina Himid Zanzíbar, Tanzania, b. 1954

Born in Zanzibar in 1954, Lubaina Himid lives and works in Preston, United Kingdom.
She studied Theatre Design at Wimbledon College of Art and later earned a master’s degree in Cultural History from the Royal College of Art.

In her painting, Himid has dedicated herself to uncovering marginalized and silenced histories, figures, and cultural moments. Her works critique the consequences of colonialism and challenge the invisibility of people of color in art and the media. Bright, graphic, and rich in color and symbolic references, her images recall history painting as well as eighteenth‑century British satirical cartoons.

She has curated important group exhibitions, including The Thin Black Line at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London (1985).

Himid has held solo exhibitions at institutions such as The New Museum in New York, the Frans Hals Museum in Haarlem, Gifts to Kingsat the MRAC in Sérignan; Navigation Charts at Spike Island in Bristol; Invisible Strategies at Modern Art Oxford; and The Truth Is Never Watertight at the Badischer Kunstverein in Karlsruhe. Significant group exhibitions include Glasgow International (2018); We Don’t Need Another Hero at the Berlin Biennale (2018); The Place Is Here, Nottingham Contemporary (2017); Keywords, Tate Liverpool (2014); and Burning Down the House at the Gwangju Biennale (2014).