Glenn Ligon
Study for Blue (for JB) #24, 2026

Carbon, graphite, and acrylic on Kozo paper

13 1/2 x 10 1/2 in (34.3 x 26.7 cm)

Courtesy of the artist, Hauser & Wirth, and Thomas Dane Gallery

Selected by Ebony Haynes

Throughout his career, the artist Glenn Ligon (b. 1960) has pursued an incisive exploration of American history, literature, and society across bodies of work that build critically on the legacies of modern painting and conceptual art. He earned his BA from Wesleyan University (1982) and attended the Whitney Museum Independent Study Program (1985). Important solo exhibitions include Break It Down, Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO (2025); All Over the Place, The Fitzwilliam Museum at the University of Cambridge, England (2024); Post-Noir, Carre d’Art, Nîmes (2022); Call and Response, Camden Arts Centre, London (2014); and his mid-career retrospective America, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2011). Select curatorial projects include Grief and Grievance, New Museum, New York (2021) and Blue Black, Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis (2017). He has participated in numerous international exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale (2015, 1997) and Documenta XI (2002). Ligon lives and works in New York.