Mickalene Thomas (left) and Racquel Chevremont (proper) on the 2021 Guggenheim Worldwide Gala on November 17, 2021 (photograph by Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Photographs)
A lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Courtroom at the moment, October 27, particulars allegations of bodily assault, emotional abuse, and monetary manipulation towards artist Mickalene Thomas by her former fiancée and enterprise accomplice, the mannequin and artwork advisor Racquel Chevremont.
Increasing on Chevremont’s preliminary grievance from August, through which she said her intent to sue Thomas for alleged harassment and nonpayment, the brand new court docket filings reviewed by Hyperallergic embody a beforehand undisclosed declare that Thomas bodily assaulted her in October 2020.
The lawsuit additionally accuses Thomas of withholding hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in wages, bonuses, and different agreed-upon compensation over the course of their 10-year working relationship. Chevremont is looking for a minimum of $14.2 million in damages, excluding curiosity, counsel charges, and different quantities to be decided at trial. The majority of the entire stems from compensatory damages for alleged sexual harassment and a hostile work setting ($5 million), together with an unjust enrichment declare accusing Thomas of capitalizing on Chevremont’s picture and labor ($4 million).
A spokesperson for Thomas reached by way of her public relations staff, Karla Otto, denied the allegations in an announcement despatched to Hyperallergic.
“Mickalene is a world-renowned artist who is the sole author and architect of her decades-long success. The allegations made by her ex-girlfriend are completely false and a desperate attempt to remain relevant and profit off Mickalene’s hard-earned reputation, career achievements, and legacy,” the spokesperson stated. “We will deal with this frivolous and petty exploitation in court.”
Chevremont met Thomas in 2002, when the artist was finishing a residency on the Studio Museum in Harlem, the place Chevremont was on the acquisitions committee. They began relationship in 2011 and started working collectively the next 12 months. The court docket submitting paints an image of Chevremont as instrumental to Thomas’s rise on this early interval of her profession. She used her trend connections to assist Thomas’s work on editorial images for manufacturers like Absolut Vodka, campaigns that generally featured Chevremont as a mannequin, the filings say.
The pair formalized their skilled relationship in 2015, when the collector Jean-Pierre Lehmann commissioned Thomas to create a portray primarily based on {a photograph} of Chevremont from considered one of their first collaborative shoots. On account of the mannequin’s considerations over the usage of her picture, Thomas and Chevremont established a restricted legal responsibility firm that gave every social gathering a 50% curiosity in any works created as a part of the enterprise — together with the photograph of Chevremont that will encourage “Racquel Reclined Wearing Purple Jumpsuit” (2016).
That work, which portrays Chevremont in a shimmering violet ensemble on a deconstructed couch rendered in Thomas’s attribute collage of paint, silkscreen, and glitter, offered for $1.8 million at Christie’s in 2021.
In line with court docket filings, Thomas agreed to pay Chevremont a portion of the proceeds from gross sales of any works derived from such “collaborative” pictures, and thus priced these works at a 25–35% premium. However Chevremont didn’t obtain these funds, the lawsuit claims, considered one of a number of allegations that Thomas denied her agreed-upon compensation, corresponding to a $2 million bonus for a deal Chevremont helped dealer with the Israeli collector Jose Mugrabi that, in keeping with the court docket doc, by no means materialized.
Chevremont alleges that Thomas was “unstable and emotionally abusive” in each their private and work relationships. In October 2020, nonetheless, “the abuse turned physical,” the lawsuit claims. “Ms. Chevremont ended their romantic relationship after Ms. Thomas assaulted her.”
The submitting offers no additional element on the character of the assault. Chevremont’s authorized illustration, Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz, declined to remark.
The lawsuit additionally consists of allegations of quid professional quo sexual harassment, alleging that Thomas “persistently attempted to rekindle” their relationship, despatched Chevremont unsolicited romantic messages, and threatened her with “physical violence if she were to date other women.” On one event, Thomas allegedly informed Chevremont that she had had a video digital camera put in in her bed room and would reveal intimate photographs or movies if Chevremont didn’t disclose particulars of her relationship life.
In Could 2022, Thomas fired Chevremont in retaliation for rejecting her advances, the lawsuit claims. The submitting additionally accuses Thomas of pursuing a marketing campaign to tarnish Chevremont’s status within the artwork world, disparaging her to galleries, sabotaging contracts, and telling her, within the lawsuit’s phrases, that “she should go back to modeling because no artist will ever work with her again.”
