Ferens Art Gallery has acquired a painting by artist Emma Prempeh for its collection, through the Contemporary Art Society.
Following the commission and resulting exhibition by Artlink’s 87 Gallery in Hull, Prempeh’s painting ‘Ira’ has now joined the gallery’s permanent collection. The painting has been acquired through the Contemporary Art Society, who have supported acquisitions at the Ferens since 1931.
The painting has now been installed and is on display in the Centre Court of the Ferens Art Gallery.
Councillor Jackie Dad, deputy leader and portfolio holder for culture and leisure, said: “We are delighted that we have been able to acquire Emma’s painting for the people of Hull.
“Her work for 87 Gallery and with the community now has a fantastic legacy in the collection of Ferens Art Gallery and Hull Museums.
“Emma has created a beautiful and poignant response to a well-known painting at Wilberforce House, giving a voice to Ira Aldridge and portraying him as a sitter in the painting, no longer a symbol of enslavement.”
Director of the Contemporary Art Society, Caroline Douglas, said: “Ira is a powerful work that reimagines a familiar portrait through Emma Prempeh’s deeply considered engagement with histories of representation.
“We’re thrilled to support its acquisition by Ferens Art Gallery, where its connection to Hull and the communities Prempeh worked with gives the painting a particularly meaningful place in the collection.”
For her 2025 exhibition The Nearness of Elsewhere, Prempeh created an immersive installation of painting and digital projection. The exhibition was inspired by research visits to Hull, where the artist led workshops and attended community gatherings to incorporate the stories of local people and places.
Emma explains the process behind her creation of this monumental painting: “I originally saw ‘Portrait of Ira Aldridge by an unknown artist’ in the Wilberforce House Museum. There were many aspects of the painting that drew me in: the painter of the portrait being unknown, along with the clothing the subject was wearing. The red jumpsuit, more contemporary than the age of the work and the shackles on his wrists. It made me curious about who painted the piece and why.
“Later on, I found out it was a copy of the original painting, ‘The Captive Slave. But ah! What wish can prosper or what prayer for merchants rich in cargoes of despair’ by John Philip Simpson. The sitter was Ira Aldridge, a Shakespearean actor and campaigner born in New York in the year of the abolition of the slave trade act, who emigrated to England and became a successful actor. He sat for Simpson in a work that constructed black suffering as spectacle to white empathy in the years leading up to the British Emancipation Act of 1833.
“Before painting his portrait, I asked myself what it meant as a black woman 200 years later, repainting the image to refuse the trope of black suffering as spectacle. Aldridge was born free; he was not a captive. Repainting him meant disentangling him from a narrative that reduced him to a symbol of bondage. I wanted to frame him in a contemporary world reflective of the many different communities and cultures that now reside in Hull, shifting the focus of captivity to collective presence.
“It was great to collaborate with communities in Hull. I was meeting people with families there for many decades, some for centuries. People with parents from across the world and some newly beginning their journeys in the city. The contributions were illustrations and words defining what home means to them all, seen in the final outcome around and within the new portrait of Ira Aldridge, unshackled and surrounded by glints of gold from the Schlag metal catching the light, suggesting value where it was once denied.”
Ferens Art Gallery is open Monday to Saturday 10am–4.30pm and Sunday 11am–4pm.