Tamica Lige, M.A.

She/her

Education: Bachelor of Arts in art history (May 2011)

Master of Arts in higher education administration, student affairs, from the University of Missouri-Kansas City

Currently pursuing a Doctor of Education in educational administration-higher education at the University of Missouri-Kansas City

McNair Project: The Black Magus in Dürer’s Adoration of the Magi: Frederick the Wise and the German Attraction to the African Image (2010)

Mentor: Douglas Dow, Ph.D.

Albrecht Dürer’s Adoration of the Magi, commissioned by Frederick the Wise, features a black African King, an iconographic motif that only appeared in the mid fifteenth century. Before he commissioned this altarpiece, Frederick took a pilgrimage to Magdeburg where he was introduced to St. Maurice, a prominent black African figure in Germany’s eastern empire. While in Venice, Dürer was exposed to black Africans and took an interest in representing them. The black Magus in the Adoration of the Magi's evidence of Frederick’s and Dürer’s attraction to the African image, which northern Europeans adapted in visual imagery for artistic and religious purposes.