Faith Ringgold: 20th C. Woman Artist!

20th Century Women Artist:
Faith Ringgold

                                                Faith Ringgold

Faith Ringgold is a painter, author, sculptor and quilter who was born in 1930 in Harlem, New York, and is known today as Professor Emeritus in the University of California, San Diego visual arts department. She was influenced by fabrics she worked with at her home with her mother, who was also a fashion designer. Ringgold used fabrics in most of her artwork.  She is well-known story quilts which are viewed as high art or crafting as she brought painting, quilting as storytelling together. This art form was common on the  Continent of Africa and in the black American culture.

Ringgold used a Bhudhist to model her story quilts and painted pictures on fabric and quilts to be rolled up easily for transport.  She inspired many artist and has known some of the most successful and talented black artist in the world.  Her collection of work is permanently displayed in several museum in New York City  including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in Harlem, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Museum of Modern Art. She has also written seventeen children's books.  The book "Tar Beach" has won the Coretta Scott King Award for illustration.




In Chadwick's book, Women Art and Society he suggests that "It is black artist and women like Faith Ringgold who first gave visual to the discussion between the white American dream and the black American reality"(Chadwick 341).  He states that the American media images were accepted by the masses occassionally would include blacks, but their mere existence confirmed white stereotypes. "It is the works of artist like Ringgold that focused attention on how distant the black community was from the mainstream."

                                                                    "Die" 1967
                                                               (American People Series)





Ringgold's American People Series (1963-67) were inspired by the witers James Baldwin and Amiri Baraka.  According to Chadwick's book, " In 1966, she was instrumental in the first exhibition of black artists held in Harlem since the 1930's"(Chadwick 342).  "Years later,Ringgold exhibited Die, a twelve foot mural of a street riot that was painted in representatiional style that was influenced by the realisms of the many 1930's painters."  

                                                                   Sunflower's Quliting Bee
                                                                      at Arles, 1997
                                                               




                                              
  Ringgold was also an activist in the Women's Liberation Movement and helped  to organize Women Students and Artists for Black Art Liberation (WASABAL) and the New York Arti Strike Agaiinst War, Racism, Facism, Sexism and Repression organized by the Art Workers Coalition, shut down  New York  museums for one day in May, 1970 according to Chadwick's book, Women, Art and Society.

exhiibit tells of struggle
 and success through eyes
of black women artists








In the 1970's Ringgold began to write narratiges on the realities of black women's lives in work that went from the canvas to become masks, performances and three dimensional sculptures in which narrative voices tell the stories of their lives.She traveled the country performing these pieces. Her remarkable lif'e's work are specific stories of family, tragedy loss and redemption that continue to inspire generations,

                                                               
                                                                   Award Winning
                                                                    children's book





Citations:

Chadwick, Whitney, Women, Art and Society.New York, NY:Thames and Hudson, 1990 Print.

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