I recently had the opportunity for a private press tour, led by the artist herself, of a magnificent exhibit by Black American artist Tawny Chatmon at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. I intend to write at greater length about this remarkable show in the near future, but for the moment I offer a brief introduction by way of one piece that particularly struck me because to my eye, it seems to be somewhat paradoxically an ekphrastic work of visual art.

“What’s More American Than Vanilla Ice Cream,”
courtesy National Museum of Women in the Arts

As readers no doubt know, ekphrasis is a literary term referring to poems about other arts, most commonly about visual art. I also consider my own poems about music as ekphrastic, and I think poems about film, dance, or even television shows could fall into the category.

Tawny Chatmon’s work is difficult to label: She begins with a photograph, taken by her, often of family members or friends, then places it on a painted background and embellishes the image with other materials such as gold, paint, or threads. Therefore it is difficult to know exactly what a given piece should be called. So for convenience I use here work or piece. (I will go into much greater detail when I write at greater length about her processes, themes, and purposes.)

At first look, “What’s More American...?” appears to be a photograph of beautiful Black woman reclining in a red, star -covered gown, savoring a vanilla ice cream cone. But look more closely at the soft focus background: A pair of men carrying American flags (whose stars seem to have fallen off and adorned the woman’s dress) advance from left to right. According to the artist, this image is based on an illustration she discovered in the Library of Congress depicting white men on their way to attack a Black community or farm in the post-reconstruction South. Beneath that layer, we find what could be a detail from an Impressionist painting, the work, say, of Monet or Manet. So what in the beginning appears to be a lovely portrait is suddenly complicated by not one, but two deeper layers of history.

It is the complex, multi-layered nature of this work that leads me to call it ekphrastic, albeit in a somewhat unconventional way. For example, the ice cream cone is not simply a warm weather treat, it stands in for the historical role of Black chefs in creating and popularizing ice cream. Thomas Jefferson’s enslaved chef, James Hemings (who also brought macaroni and cheese to American tables), created recipes for ice cream that was served at Jefferson’s banquets. (In a typical act of erasure, Jefferson is often given credit for both culinary developments.) At that time, the dish was complicated and expensive to prepare so it was reserved for the upper class. But in the 1820s, Augustus Jackson, a Black chef who had worked for President James Monroe, left the White House and started making and selling a simplified version of ice cream. The confection thus became more available and popular and Jackson began to be known as “King Ice Cream.”

One has to dig deep to discover these contributions to American cuisine and these men are subjects of the erasure that Chatmon seeks to overcome in many of her pictures. This piece tells a story and comments on history. In itself that’s hardly unusual in visual art. But the layering that moves the viewer’s gaze back to historical racism and further to the history of European art, notorious for its frequent racist presentation or total omission of Black faces and bodies, itself provides a commentary on the history of Western art. Hence my suggestion that this work, as well as a number of her others, is ekphrastic.

I have only been able to glance at the richness of Chatmon’s depictions and the manner in which she complicates our understanding of Black history, racial politics, art history, and even foodways. Stay tune for more.

The show runs through March 8, 2026. If you happen to be in or near the D.C. area during the run, I cannot recommend it highly enough.