In 1994 Kara Walker made her New York debut when Ann Philbin, then director of The Drawing Center, invited Walker to participate in a group exhibition at the museum. Given a 50 foot length of wall, Walker responded with an installation of black cut-out silhouettes - a tableau populated by antebellum figures in a turbulent scene. Referencing Margaret Mitchell's 1936 novel Gone with the Wind the work is titled, Gone: An Historical Romance of a Civil War as It Occurred b'tween the Dusky Thighs of One Young Negress and Her Heart. The installation is now in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

Walker continues to employ the silhouette technique, rooted in the Victorian “ladies’ art” of shadow portraits, and has made over 50 wall installations, many of which are in institutional collections worldwide.