Chicago Photographer Accuses Mickalene Thomas of Copyright Infringement
Barbara Karant alleges that Thomas “appropriated more than a dozen” of her images in a new lawsuit.
A Chicago-based photographer is suing artist Mickalene Thomas for alleged copyright infringement, according to documents filed in federal district court in Illinois on May 26.
Barbara Karant, whose works are held in the photography collections of institutions including the Art Institute of Chicago, claims that Thomas “appropriated more than a dozen” of her images without her consent or proper attribution.
The dispute revolves around Karant’s 820 Ebony/Jet (2013–15) series, a collection of 250 photographs taken at the vacant former headquarters of one of the largest Black-owned media companies in the United States, the Johnson Publishing Company. The South Michigan Avenue headquarters was Chicago’s first high-rise commissioned by a Black-owned corporation. The now-defunct company, which sold its building to Columbia College Chicago in 2010, published Ebony and Jet — two early magazines dedicated to African-American culture, entertainment, and politics — until its closure in 2016.
In the years after the building’s sale, Karant photographed its singular interiors, originally envisioned by Chicago interior designers Arthur Elrod and William Raiser.
The lawsuit alleges that an installation in Thomas’s 2024 exhibition All About Love at The Broad “incorporated her copyrighted photographs,” including one she took in an Ebony Fashion Fair dressing room and two others of patterned walls inside the headquarters.
“The vibrant, patterned shapes, the ceiling lights, and the patterned wallpaper … were all lifted from Karant’s photographs of the JPC interiors,” the lawsuit reads.
Karant also alleged that other works by Thomas included images taken from her work, including “Nus Exotiques #10” (2025), a collage featuring a nude Black woman and a fragment of a window allegedly appropriated from an 820 Ebony/Jet photograph.
An attorney listed for Thomas on legal filings and her public relations team have not yet responded to Hyperallergic’s requests for comment. Charles Insler, Karant’s attorney, declined to comment.
Karant also named several galleries in the suit that had displayed Thomas’s allegedly appropriative work in person and online, including Lévy Gorvy Dayan, Yancey Richardson, Kavi Gupta, and Galerie Nathalie Obadia. They are accused of participating in “willful” copyright infringement.
In a statement to Hyperallergic, a spokesperson for Lévy Gorvy Dayan said the gallery was “deeply respectful of all artists' rights and creativity” and declined to comment further, citing “active litigation.” The other named galleries did not respond to Hyperallergic’s requests for comment.
The lawsuit comes months before Karant’s book 820 Ebony/Jet: Visions of the Johnson Publishing Company, an American Icon is set to be published by MW Editions. The Chicago-based photographer’s attorneys argued in the suit that “Thomas’s copying has damaged Karant’s ability to sell her own photographs” and jeopardizes the market for her forthcoming book.
The use and appropriation of other artists' images in original artworks has been legally contested for decades. In 2024, artist Richard Prince was ordered to pay over half a million dollars in a lawsuit filed by Donald Graham and Eric McNatt, whose photographs Prince had found online and "remixed" in his own works.
Thomas is widely known for her elaborate collages, paintings, and installations portraying Black American women, often featuring elements such as rhinestones and glitter.
The suit marks the second public legal action against Thomas within the last year. Last August, her former fiancée and business partner, Racquel Chevremont, accused the artist of abuse, allegations which Thomas expressly denied, in a $14 million lawsuit in the New York State Supreme Court.
