Photographer Sues Artist Over Alleged Appropriation of Extra Than a Dozen of Her Images

A photographer has sued in style artist Mickalene Thomas for allegedly appropriating greater than a dozen of her photographs with out consent or attribution.

Photographer Barbara Karant filed the lawsuit towards Thomas, who is understood for her work and photo-based collages, in Illinois’ federal district courtroom. According to court documents obtained by Hyperallergic earlier this month, Karant — whose works are within the collections of establishments such because the Art Institute of Chicago — claims that “in installation after installation, and in collage after collage, Thomas has engaged in the wholesale copying of copyrighted works from a fellow artist.”

The lawsuit facilities round Karant’s 820 Ebony/Jet (2013–15) sequence, which consists of 250 photographs shot the Johnson Publishing Company in Chicago, which, till 2019, was one of many largest African-American media corporations within the U.S. The firm owned the publications Ebony and Jet till 2016. Karant photographed the constructing’s vacant interiors for the sequence, which she accomplished in 2015.

According to Hyperallergic, the lawsuit claims that an set up in Thomas’ 2024 exhibition All About Love included Karant’s copyrighted photographs with out due attribution, together with one she took in an Ebony Fashion Fair dressing room and two others of patterned partitions contained in 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 states.

Karant additional claims that Thomas drew on a number of different pictures from her archive for extra works. Among them is Nus Exotiques #10 (2025), a collage depicting a nude Black lady alongside a part of a window, which the lawsuit alleges was taken from {a photograph} in Karant’s 820 Ebony/Jet sequence.

The authorized motion reportedly comes forward of the publication of Karant’s forthcoming e book 820 Ebony/Jet: Visions of the Johnson Publishing Company, an American Icon, which is because of be launched within the coming months. According to the criticism, Karant says that Thomas’ alleged copyright infringement has undermined her potential to license and promote her pictures whereas additionally threatening the industrial prospects of the upcoming publication.

As Plagiarism Today notes, the case bears resemblance to photographer Patrick Cariou’s copyright dispute with artist Richard Prince. Cariou sued Prince in 2008 after the artist included dozens of his pictures of Rastafarians in Jamaica into work and collages. Prince added painted components and different alterations that he argued made them truthful use. A decrease courtroom initially discovered Prince accountable for copyright infringement. However, a federal appeals courtroom later dominated that many of the works had been sufficiently transformative to qualify as truthful use. The choice turned one of the vital truthful use rulings within the artwork world, although it additionally sparked concern amongst photographers who feared it weakened protections for his or her work.

Image creditHeader photograph licensed through Depositphotos.