In the lead-up to the 2017 film, African-American portraitist Kadir Nelson, commissioned by HBO, set out to capture Lacks in a richly colored, larger-than-life oil painting. That visual rendering of the woman whose cells have saved millions was just jointly acquired by the National Museum of African American History of Culture and the National Portrait Gallery, and will be on view on the first floor of the latter through November 4, 2018.
“Nelson wanted to create a portrait that told the story of her life,” says painting and sculpture curator Dorothy Moss. “He was hoping to honor Henrietta Lacks with this portrait, because there was no painted portrait that existed of her.”
HENRIETTA LACKS (HELA): THE MOTHER OF MODERN MEDICINE
In the painting, a kind-eyed, smiling Henrietta looks directly at the viewer, pearls around her neck and a bible held snugly in her overlapped hands. Her canted sun hat resembles a halo, while the geometric “Flower of Life” pattern on the wallpaper behind her suggests both the concept of immortality and the structural complexity of biology. “Nelson captures her strength and her warmth,” Moss says. The artist also signals the darker aspect of Lacks’s story in a subtle way, omitting two of the buttons on her red dress to imply that something precious was stolen from her.
The painting is situated towards the entrance of the Portrait Gallery, in a hall devoted to portraits of influential people. Moss hopes the piece will serve as “a signal to the kinds of history we want to tell. We want to make sure that people who have not been written into traditional narratives of history are visible immediately when our visitors enter.”
Moss is hopeful that the new addition to the gallery will both celebrate a courageous and kind-hearted woman and get people talking about the nuances of her story. “It will spark a conversation,” Moss says, “about people who have made a significant impact on science yet have been left out of history.”
HBO commissioned the portrait in conjunction with the promotion of the 2017 film. An HBO spokesperson tells Quartz that the painting was created “with a larger goal in mind to ensure her legacy lived on” after the film premiered.
HBO selected an artist with an acuity for storytelling. Los Angeles-based painter Kadir Nelson is also the author of several best-selling children’s books on African-American culture and worked as the lead artist for Steven Spielberg’s 1997 historical drama Amistad. The 44-year old artist uses tropes drawn from allegorical religious portraiture to summarize the biography of the so-called “Mother of Modern Medicine.”
“She stands with her beautifully manicured hands crossed, covering her womb (the birthplace of the immortal cell line) while cradling her beloved Bible (a symbol of her strong faith). Her deep red dress is covered with a vibrant floral pattern that recalls images of cell structure and division,” Nelson writes in an Instagram post. “Her bright yellow hat, which functions as a halo, her pearls as a symbol of the cancer that took her life, and the repeated hexagonal wallpaper pattern, a design containing the ‘Flower of Life,’ an ancient symbol of immortality and exponential growth.” However, the portrait’s most essential detail is one Nelson purposely omitted. Missing from her crimson dress are several buttons that allude to the cells harvested from Lacks’s body.
nt to make sure that people who have not been written into traditional narratives of history are visible immediately when our visitors enter.”
Moss is hopeful that the new addition to the gallery will both celebrate a courageous and kind-hearted woman and get people talking about the nuances of her story. “It will spark a conversation,” Moss says, “about people who have made a significant impact on science yet have been left out of history.”
Read more:
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/famed-immortal-cells-henrietta-lacks-immortalized-portraiture-180969085/#g77LxB2S1ejSEWlk.99
https://qz.com/quartzy/1280775/the-most-important-detail-from-henrietta-lackss-portrait-is-whats-missing/