Faith Ringgold (1930-2024) was an African American artist, painter, and mixed-media artist, famous for her “story quilts”—narrative quilts blending painting, fabric, and text. Committed to the civil rights and feminist movements, she was also an author of children's books.
Frequently asked questions
Key Facts
- Born in 1930 in Harlem, New York, within the African American community
- Began creating her “story quilts”—painted, narrative quilts—starting in the 1980s
- Published the award-winning children's book “Tar Beach” in 1991, based on one of her quilts
- An activist deeply involved in the feminist and anti-racist struggles of the 1960s and 1970s
- Died in 2024, recognized as a major figure in African American art
Works & Achievements
A vast canvas depicting a race riot, now a major work on the tensions of 1960s America. Today housed at the MoMA.
A painting in which the American flag bleeds, denouncing racial violence beneath the national symbol.
Her most famous story quilt, telling of a little girl who flies above Harlem. Housed at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
A children's book adaptation of her quilt, awarded the Caldecott Honor and several children's literature prizes.
A series of story quilts featuring a fictional young Black artist among the great masters of art in Paris.
An autobiography in which Ringgold traces her life as an artist, a woman, and an activist.
Soft fabric sculptures inspired by African art, made together with her mother, asserting a pride in her roots.
Anecdotes
As an asthmatic child, Faith Ringgold spent long days at home in Harlem, where her mother, a fashion designer, taught her to sew and work with fabric. Those hours spent with needle and cloth would later feed into her famous *story quilts*.
In 1963, the university denied Ringgold a degree in painting because she was a woman: she first had to earn a teaching degree. Yet she would go on to become one of the most celebrated African American artists of the 20th century.
In the 1970s, Ringgold organized protests outside New York's Whitney Museum and MoMA to denounce the absence of Black artists and women from major exhibitions. She was even briefly arrested for having “desecrated” the American flag in a work condemning racism.
Her quilt *Tar Beach* (1988) tells the story of a little girl who imagines flying over Harlem from the rooftop of her building. In 1991 the work became a children's picture book that earned a prestigious distinction, the Caldecott Honor.
To get around the galleries that ignored Black women artists, Ringgold would sometimes carry her fabric works — light and foldable — in a simple suitcase, which let her show them anywhere without the heavy frames of traditional painting.
Primary Sources
I wanted to tell my story, or rather a part of it, and the story of my ancestors, through art.
I can fly, yes, fly. Me, Cassie Louise Lightfoot, I have flown over the highway, the buildings, the George Washington Bridge, into the starry sky.
Art can change the world. That is why I paint: to tell the truth about what it means to be a Black woman in America.
Key Places
African-American neighborhood where Ringgold was born and raised, home of the Harlem Renaissance. It inspires most of her works, including Tar Beach.
University where Ringgold studied art and earned her degrees, despite the obstacles placed before women. There she shaped her calling as a painter.
Museum outside which Ringgold protested in the 1970s to demand the inclusion of Black artists and women. An emblematic site of her activism.
University where Ringgold taught art from 1987 until her retirement. There she passed on her commitment to generations of students.
Town where Ringgold settled and worked in her studio during her final decades, and where she died in 2024.
Typical Objects
A painted canvas surrounded by quilted fabrics and panels of text, blending the African-American quilting tradition with narrative painting. It is Ringgold's artistic signature.
Sewing tools handed down by her mother, a fashion designer. They connect her art to the textile craft of the women in her family and in the Black community.
Painter's materials used for the large canvases of the American People series before she switched to fabric. Acrylic paint allows for bright colors and quick drying.
A book aimed at young readers, such as Tar Beach, in which Ringgold adapts her quilts into accessible stories. It spreads her themes — freedom, identity, dreams — to the youngest audiences.
Soft sculptures and masks inspired by African arts that she creates with her mother in the 1970s. They assert a pride in African roots.
A recurring motif in her work, where the flag of the United States becomes the vehicle for a message about racism. Its provocative use leads to legal prosecution.
School Curriculum
Vocabulary & Tags
Key Vocabulary
Tags
Daily Life
Morning
In the morning, Ringgold heads to her studio, often set up in her own home, where canvases and fabrics await her. She begins by drawing or painting, taking advantage of daylight to work on the vivid colors of her compositions.
Afternoon
The afternoon is devoted to sewing and quilting her story quilts, a painstaking work of assembly. She also receives students, journalists, and activists, for her art and her activism are inseparable.
Evening
In the evening, she writes: children's stories, memoirs, or texts woven into her quilts. It is also a time for reading and family exchanges, as her daughters and her mother are close to her work.
Food
A twentieth-century woman living in New York and later in New Jersey, she eats ordinary American fare, shaped by the African American traditions of “soul food” inherited from the South. Family meals shared together hold an important place.
Clothing
Ringgold is fond of colorful clothing and African fabrics, flowing dresses and wax-print headwraps, proudly affirming her identity. Her mother, a fashion designer, passed on to her a love of cloth and elegance.
Housing
She lives in apartments and houses in the New York area, in Harlem and later in Englewood (New Jersey), where she sets up a spacious studio. Her home is also her place of creation, blending everyday life with artistic work.
Historical Timeline
Period Vocabulary
Liens externes & ressources
Références
Œuvres
American People Series #20: Die
1967
Tar Beach (Woman on a Bridge series)
1988
Tar Beach (album pour enfants)
1991
The French Collection
1991-1997
We Flew Over the Bridge (mémoires)
1995
