Ellen Gallagher, DeLuxe

Take a closer look at artist Ellen Gallagher’s DeLuxe with assistant curator Carine Harmand. DeLuxe is a grid of sixty individually-framed prints. The imagery is based on magazines dating from the 1930s to the 1970s aimed at African-American audiences, many of which feature advertisements for ‘improvements’ including wigs, hair pomades, and skin bleaching creams. Gallagher transformed these images using a variety of printing techniques, combining traditional processes of etching and lithography with recent developments in digital technology. She also made modifications by cutting and layering images and text and adding a range of materials including plasticine, glitter, gold leaf, toy eyeballs and coconut oil. Her witty and sophisticated interventions emphasize the complex construction of identity.

Title DeLuxe
Artist(s) Ellen Gallagher
Dates 2004–05
Places North America / United States
Period, Culture, Style Contemporary
Artwork Type Mixed media / Print
Material Paper
Technique Lithography

Cite this page as: Tate, "Ellen Gallagher, DeLuxe," in Smarthistory, November 7, 2022, accessed February 19, 2025, https://smarthistory.org/ellen-galagher-deluxe/.