Artist, Activist Faith Ringgold, 93 Has Died; Colorful, Daring Artwork of Black Life for 5 Decades, Story Quilts
Trailblazing Artist & Activist Faith Ringgold Has Died at 93, Artnet News, April 14, 2024. Ed.
The artist's vast oeuvre of painting, sculpture, quilts, & books spanned more than 5 decades.(VIDEO below).
Faith Ringgold, the trailblazing artist who documented the African American experience in painting, sculpture, quilts, and books over more than 5 decades, has died at age 93 on April 13 in her home in Englewood, N.J. Ringgold is best known for her painted story quilts, which she began in the 1980s. These narrative pieces, some autobiographical, chronicled Black life and history in intricate panels that blended image and text.
Her first such textile work, Who’s Afraid of Aunt Jemima? (1983), reimagined a reductive Black stereotype as a feminist hero, while her most famous quilt, Tar Beach 2 (1990), injected her memories of growing up in Harlem with a touch of fantasy. Ringgold has described her quilts as paintings “in the medium of quilting.” “Throughout my professional life I felt free to do whatever I wanted to do—and use whatever material was suitable for my vision,” she said in 2022. “I felt no limitation.” (Women on a Bridge #1 of 5: Tar Beach (1988).
The narrative quilts followed Ringgold’s work in painting, sculpture, and performance art throughout the 1960s & ’70s, when she emerged as one of the key leaders of the Black Arts movement. Alongside her creative practice was her activism: she co-founded Women Students and Artists for Black Art Liberation with her daughter, Michele Wallace, in 1970; and Where We At, a collective established in 1971 to support Black women artists.
In the 1990s, Ringgold began writing a run of more than 10 children’s books, the first of which, Tar Beach (1991), clinched the Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration. She published her memoir, We Flew Over the Bridge, in 1995, detailing the joys of her Harlem childhood as much as the struggles of maintaining a studio practice while raising a family. Ringgold's art has been collected by institutions including the Museum of Modern Art in NY, the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Wash., D.C., and the High Museum of Fine Art in Atlanta, Ga...
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/faith-ringgold-death-2469431
Best-Known for her Story Quilts - Faith Ringgold's Vibrant, Daring Art. CBS 'Sunday Morning' profile with Nancy Giles, July 11, 2021. Ringgold refused to bow to convention during her career as she stitched colorful tapestries of art, history and social commentary.
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