Sour Grapes, from the Wing Museum series
Grapes hang from the top left-hand corner in this large oil painting by Lubaina Himid. They are black, set against a pale pink background, almost touching the end of a tail from the bottom right-hand corner. The close proximity between the two forms allude to a reading of ‘sour grapes’ from Aesop’s Fables. A hungry fox, upon failing to reach a bunch of grapes that hang on a branch up high, walks away and grumbles that the grapes were probably sour, anyway. The phrase has come to describe an attitude whereby someone dismisses the thing that they cannot attain, convincing themselves that it was not worth achieving in the first place.
Part of the Wing Museum Series, Sour Grapes raises questions about presence and invisibility in historical record. The simplicity of the composition and its allusion to the auspicious fables makes it a symbol for Aesop himself. Many fables are attributed to Aesop, but it is not clear whether he actually existed. Moreover, some scholars claim that Aesop was Ethiopian – a debate that raises questions about how society assumes that prominent historical figures are white. Himid included this representation of Aesop in The Ballad of the Wing to ‘fill in some of those gaps in history,’ and reinsert Black narratives into the forefront of cultural conversation.
