On December 31, 1957, I landed here for the first time. Over the next three months, I traveled alone from Alexandria to Cairo and down the Nile to Luxor and Aswan. It was a transformative experience. The size, scale, and inscriptions of the statues, pillars, columns, and obelisks in Karnak have influenced my artistic practice ever since. The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities in Cairo is still one of my favorite places in the world. Its entire collection affected me deeply. My “Cleopatra Series,” 1973–2003, was partly inspired by my stay in Egypt.
One of my favorite artworks is a painting from my personal collection. It is a diplomatic portrait of Alessandro de’ Medici by Jacopo da Pontormo made between 1534 and 1535. As the duke of Florence, Medici was one of the first biracial leaders of Europe. There are only a handful of portraits of this kind, one of which sits in the Museum of Art in Philadelphia, the city where I grew up.
Upon my graduation from Yale, where I earned my MFA, I spent a great deal of time with architects in London. My favorite contemporary architect is David Adjaye. I was thrilled to see him win the 2021 Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects. I have followed his career and many of his projects, and I look forward to seeing his Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi come to fruition. Having traveled throughout the world, I have never encountered a religious complex where Islam, Judaism, and Christianity are all celebrated. The respective designs for the building’s mosque, church, and synagogue are breathtaking.
As a former dancer, I am drawn to the artist’s paintings of them. The Hours Behind You, 2011, is emblematic of Yiadom-Boakye’s unique oeuvre. In its motion, the figurative elements metamorphose into a nearly abstract composition. I look forward to her conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist at the Serpentine Galleries during Frieze London this month and to seeing her exhibition “Fly in League with the Night” at Tate Britain in November.
Eames chairs are the epitome of design and comfort. In terms of furniture, I could not ask for more than my chairs by the designers, which I purchased in the 1970s.
This is Morrison’s masterpiece and one of my favorite books. I was at a party with Ken Noland in the early ’70s, and he introduced me to the Nobel Prize–winning author. We connected, and she became the editor of my first volume of poetry, From Memphis & Peking, which was published by Random House in 1974.
In 1966, Pierre commissioned me to make him two sculptures for the entrance to his first men’s boutique on the rue Saint-Honoré in Paris. Over the years, he created a lot of beautiful dresses for me in black and white.
On a quiet weekend in August 1974, while vacationing in Greece, I was invited to visit Jacqueline and Aristotle Onassis on the Greek island of Scorpios. She and I sat on the beach having lunch in front of the Christina O, her husband’s yacht. As I described the historical book I was contemplating on Thomas Jefferson’s enslaved mistress, she said to me, “Barbara, you must write this novel.” By the time it was completed, Aristotle had already died and, as a form of therapy, Jackie was working as the acquiring editor at Viking. I sent the manuscript directly to her. No one knew about Hemings’s story until Sally Hemings was published in 1979. We kept in touch for many years thereafter.
I attended the original Pan-African Cultural Festival in Algiers, which took place between July 21 and July 31, 1969, with my first husband, Marc Riboud, a Magnum photographer who was covering the event. I spent time with the Black Panthers, politicians, writers, poets, artists, and singers. Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver, Angela Davis, Miriam Makeba, and Nina Simone were all there. We were revolutionaries confronting our common concerns: colonialism on the African continent and civil rights for African Americans. It was our conversations that inspired my series of monuments to Malcolm X, which I began that year and continued through 2017.
I love this poster because it evokes so many memories. I met Josephine on April 8, 1975, when she headlined Bobino in Paris. The opening act featured my friends Carmen de Lavallade and Geoffrey Holder. I was backstage with them before the show, and not only did I meet Josephine, I saw her transformation into the legendary, larger-than-life star that she was. It was her final performance—she died four days later. In 2021, I sat in the Panthéon in Paris for her induction ceremony. Josephine was the sixth woman, and the only Black woman, laid to rest in this French hall of heroes, forty-six years after her death. I composed one of the final works in my “La Musica” series, 1990–, in her honor. La Musica Josephine Black Panthéon, 2021, will have its world premiere in “Infinite Folds,” my solo exhibition at London’s Serpentine Galleries, opening this month.
