Margo Humphrey (American, b. 1942)
The Lady and the Tiger, 1985
Four-color lithograph, ed. 28/40
30 3/8 x 22 3/16 in.
Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art, St. Petersburg College, gift of James G. Sweeny in memory of Martha M. Sweeny, 2020.4.18
Published by the Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque, NM. Printed by Brian Haberman under the supervision of Lynne D. Allen.
Born in 1942, in Oakland, California, Margo Humphrey is a printmaker, illustrator and educator known for her “bold, expressive use of color and freedom of form.” Humphrey studied printmaking at the California College of Arts and Stanford University, where she earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1974. As an educator, she has taught at universities renowned for the art programs throughout the U.S., the South Pacific and Africa, including the University of Maryland, College Park; the University of California, Santa Cruz; University of Texas, San Antonio; San Francisco Art Institute; the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; University of the South Pacific, Suva, Fiji; Yabab College of Technology, Lagos, Nigeria; among other colleges in Nigeria, Uganda, and Harare.
Inspired by the Feminist Art Movement of the 1970s, Humphrey’s prints combine autobiographical stories with fantasy to shed light on her experiences as an African American woman in a style she calls “sophisticated naïve.”
As a printmaker, Humphrey was one of the earliest African American woman artists to be recognized for her lithographs and, in 1974, was the first to be published by the Tamarind Institute. She has printed with other renowned workshops including the Rutgers Center for Innovative Print and Paper, Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop and Brandywine Workshop and Archives. She also published The River That Gave Gifts, a spiritual children’s book in 1987. Humphrey’s work is shown internationally and is in the collections of major museums including the Museum of Modern Art, in New York, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Victoria and Albert Museum, in London, National Gallery of Modern Art, in Lagos, and many others.