The Thin Black Line

The Thin Black Line is landmark group exhibition curated by the artist Lubaina Himid of works by eleven black women UK-based artists of Afro-Caribbean and South Asian heritage, hosted at the Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA), London between November 1985 and February 1986. It was the first exhibition of its kind to be hosted in a public municipal art gallery in the UK. The exhibiting artists included: Brenda Agard, Sutapa Biswas, Sonia Boyce, Chila Kumari Burman, Jennifer Comrie, Lubaina Himid, Claudette Johnson, Ingrid Pollard, Marlene Smith, Maud Sulter and Veronica Ryan.

Image 1: The private view invitation card to the original exhibition sent by Himid (who at the time lived in Battersea, London with her then partner Marlowe) to Sutapa Biswas, who at the time lived in Leeds 6, Yorkshire. Image 2: Reverse side of Image 1 in which there is a personal note from Himid to Biswas regarding the transportation of Biswas's artworks -including Biswas's monumental painting Housewives with Steak-knives (1983-85), her large-scale work The Only Good Indian.... (1985) and a multi-part large scale photographic series Whatever Happened to Cricket (1984-85), for exhibition in The Thin Black Line (1985-86). The correspondence refers to the ICA's anticipated collection of Biswas's artworks from Leeds for exhibition at the ICA. After five days of waiting for collection of these artworks, Biswas learned that no transportation had been assigned to collect the works by the ICA. As Himid's correspondence indicates, Biswas was advised to remove her painting from its stretcher, roll it and transport the artworks herself to London which given no alternative by the ICA, Biswas did; transporting all of the artworks (listed above) herself to the train station and travelling to London by train to Kings Cross Station whereupon she was met by Himid, from which point Biswas's artworks were transported by taxi to the ICA by Himid and Biswas.