The portrait of “Rosey” Thompson hangs about the mantle in the newly renamed Thompson Dining Hall, of the newly renamed Grace Hopper College.  Rosey Thompson ’84 was an African American student in Calhoun College who after being selected as a FroCo and a Rhodes Scholar, was killed in a car accident just months before his death.

In response to debate over changing the name of Calhoun College, it was decided that the dining hall would be renamed in Thompson’s honor.  In doing so, the artist Mirjam Bruckner produced a portrait of Thompson.  The painting itself uses a very limited color palette to depict a half-length portrait of Rosey amidst birds and flowers.  Measuring just a few feet wide, and several feet high, the painting makes an impact due to its departure from the typical portrait found in Yale Colleges.

Working from the definition that a portrait is a representation of someone or something, I think that this is a wonderful example.  Portraiture, under this definition, must seek to represent someone or something through an image, it does not need to accurately depict or be clearly legible as long as why it depicts is in some way representative of the suggested subject.

In this portrait of Rosey, the paint is applied in a sketchy way, leaving brushstrokes visible.  The texture is very present, and almost comes across as reminiscent of some sort of etching.   

As a student in Grace Hopper, I have loved this painting since its installation.  I think it portrays a really hopeful image of an incredible individual whose life was cut short.  While students have become numb to images of other old white men in libraries and dining halls across campus, the image of Rosey Thompson in Thompson Dining Hall is a new, albeit melancholic, image of an inspiring individual.