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

Photo collage artist Mickalene Thomas (above) has been sued by photographer Barbara Karant for allegedly using her images without permission.

A photographer has sued popular artist Mickalene Thomas for allegedly appropriating more than a dozen of her images without consent or attribution.

Photographer Barbara Karant filed the lawsuit against Thomas, who is known for her paintings and photo-based collages, in Illinois’ federal district court. According to court documents obtained by Hyperallergic earlier this month, Karant — whose works are in the collections of institutions such as 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 centers around Karant’s 820 Ebony/Jet (2013–15) series, which consists of 250 images shot the Johnson Publishing Company in Chicago, which, until 2019, was one of the largest African-American media companies in the U.S. The company owned the publications Ebony and Jet until 2016. Karant photographed the building’s vacant interiors for the series, which she completed in 2015.

According to Hyperallergic, the lawsuit claims that an installation in Thomas’ 2024 exhibition All About Love incorporated Karant’s copyrighted photos without due attribution, 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 states.

Karant further claims that Thomas drew on several other photographs from her archive for additional works. Among them is Nus Exotiques #10 (2025), a collage depicting a nude Black woman alongside part of a window, which the lawsuit alleges was taken from a photograph in Karant’s 820 Ebony/Jet series.

The legal action reportedly comes ahead of the publication of Karant’s forthcoming book 820 Ebony/Jet: Visions of the Johnson Publishing Company, an American Icon, which is due to be released in the coming months. According to the complaint, Karant says that Thomas’ alleged copyright infringement has undermined her ability to license and sell her photographs while also threatening the commercial 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 incorporated dozens of his photographs of Rastafarians in Jamaica into paintings and collages. Prince added painted elements and other alterations that he argued made them fair use. A lower court initially found Prince liable for copyright infringement. However, a federal appeals court later ruled that most of the works were sufficiently transformative to qualify as fair use. The decision became one of the most significant fair use rulings in the art world, though it also sparked concern among photographers who feared it weakened protections for their work.

Image creditsHeader photo licensed via Depositphotos.

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