Flemish-style portraits question race, equality | Gender and art | Scoop.it
From edition.cnn.com - January 3, 2015 9:02 AM

(CNN) -- Photographer Maxine Helfman didn't foresee the current outcry around civil rights in Americaback in 2012, when she began shooting portraits in the style of the old Flemish master painters -- using only black models.

Placing people of color within a portrait style that historically was the domain of the European elite is a political statement on inequality couched in a beautiful tableau.