Vicky Lane

John Blanke: Taking a portrait out of Henry VIII’s Roll

Sometimes the archive forces us to ‘unlearn’ history. The rediscovery of John Blanke
represents a significant paradigm for how we can reconceptualise race by
unlearning.

This unlearning has a vital urgency because it questions the history which has been
written on top of John Blanke; the layers of whiteness which have constructed a
particular lens to view him through. This encompasses the introduction and legacies
of the 1661 Slave Code, known as An Act for Better Ordering and Governing of
Negroes, which legalised racial violence and a systematic negation of the human
rights of black people by reducing them to ‘chattel’. This was reinforced by the
scientific racism of the Enlightenment and British Imperialism which normalised the
inequalities and violences of systemic racism we still witness today. Through
unlearning, we can see the white supremacist, colonialist logic which underlies this:
financial exploitation and gain.

If John Blanke was just a name in Henry VIII’s accounts, he wouldn’t have the same
impact. It is his visual incarnation through art which marks his difference. Although
represented in a schematic manner, (which has been reimagined evocatively through
the artists in this project) he is distinguished by his skin colour and dress, indicating
an early 16 th century perspective and necessity to represent and respect his
individuality. A distinctive shift in the black presence in the art of the North Atlantic
occurs from the early 17 th century to the mid-20 th century. In this period, black people
are largely reduced to caricature, representations of oppression and subservience or
are defined by their absence.

Beyond disrupting the view of the English as ethnically undifferentiated in 1511, John
Blanke’s portraits produce a new discourse which contradict such epistemic cultural
forms by positioning him as an equal in Tudor England. Although nobody can know if
John suffered racism, his image, success and equality in pay for his expertise and
skills, points to a different vision of race than that inscribed by the Transatlantic trade
in enslaved Africans (still worryingly embedded in the ethnicity pay gaps of today).

He provides a new liberatory framework for positioning a shared language of
change. As Michael Ohajuru has stated, the pronouns we should be using for
working on British history are: ‘we/us, our/ours’. (1) It is essential we all take on this
entangled history and use John Blanke’s portraits as a means of unlearning together.

Victoria Lane
Senior Curator, Art and Identity
Royal Museums Greenwich

 [1] Michael Ohajuru at the ‘Slavery & the City’ conference, Lloyd’s of London, 13 November 2023