Tyler Mitchell’s Art-Historical Mood Board

Visually, Mitchell's images are luxurious, stylish and seductive, reflecting the old-school photographic glamor epitomized by Richard Avedon, one of Mitchell's idols. Conceptually, Mitchell's work is rooted in his undergraduate education at New York University. Mentored there was the artist and photographic historian Deborah Willis, whose scholarly excavations of photographs of black beauties dating back to the nineteenth century provided Mitchell with the basis for his own art. By the time he had done his Fashion cover, he took his signature approach: drawing on the Willis archive and the work of pioneering photographer Kwame Brathwaite Black is beautiful movement, Mitchell was dedicated to preserving black brilliance. Even in his personal works, such as his recent series “Ghost Images,” a gothic-tinged exploration of the history of slavery on the Georgia Sea Islands, his characters are lithe and likeable, and the men are often photographed shirtless, giving some of the work a distinctly erotic feel. During a recent conversation in his Brooklyn studio, Mitchell told me that he sees the style in part as a strategic appeal to the viewer's attention. “I’ve always thought of beauty and photography as a hook to engage the viewer and talk about all sorts of things, whether it’s personality, memory, presence, history or landscape,” he said.

“Doll”, 2022.

“Simply fragile”, 2022.

Mitchell often conjures up what he calls a “black utopia,” where his characters relax and play in a manner that reflects his teenage days in Georgia, which he spent skateboarding with friends, swimming in the pond near his parents' vacation home, and taking solitary trips into the great outdoors. In one image—my favorite—a man lies on the sand, clutching a smiling child whose drool is dripping down the shirtless man's chest. Many of the photographs depict black people swimming or playing in the water, a subtle reconstruction of a leisure activity that historically excluded some black Americans and a nod to the dark history of the Middle Passage. As idyllic as Mitchell's scenes are, they force you to grapple with unpleasant reasons for why they nonetheless feel so invigorating and new. In one image, a multi-generational team lined up on the riverbank in a tableau reminiscent of Seurat's La Grande Jatte on the banks of the Seine; To emphasize the comparison, one of the figures paints en plein air.