Faith Ringgold

1930-2024

BiographyAfrican American painter and sculptor. Born in Harlem, Jones studied art at the City College of New York beginning in 1950. By 1955 she had completed her degree in Fine Arts and Education, and had two daughters, Michele Faith Wallace and Barbara Faith Wallace. From 1955 to1973 Ringgold taught in the New York City public schools. She spent many summers in Provincetown, MA, painting landscapes. In 1959 she completed a Masters degree in fine arts at City College of New York. Two years later Ringgold made her first trip to Europe, where she visited museums in Paris, Florence, and Rome. In 1962 she married Burdette Ringgold and began using his name professionally. Her first political paintings, including The American People series (1963–7), were inspired by the writings of James Baldwin and Amiri Baraka (then Leroi Jones) and included the powerful imagery of The Flag Is Bleeding. In 1966 Ringgold joined New York’s Spectrum Gallery on 57th Street, and had her first solo exhibition there in the following year. Her early paintings addressed civil rights and other political issues that affected women; Advent of Black Power (1967) was intended as a design for a US postage stamp. A dedicated feminist, in 1970 Faith Ringgold helped to organize the Ad Hoc Women’s Group, which promoted the inclusion of women in museum exhibitions. Through her efforts two black women, Betye Saar and Barbara Chase-Riboud, were the first to be selected for the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Sculpture Biennial. The gallery Where We At, which Ringgold co-founded in 1971, grew out of this activism. Where We At became a venue for African American women to exhibit in New York City. Awarded a CAPS grant in 1971, Ringgold created a mural for the Women’s House of Detention at Riker’s Island. A ten-year retrospective of her work was held at Rutgers University in 1973. By the next year Ringgold had developed her soft sculptures and abstract paintings based on African Kuba designs. Beginning in 1972, Ringgold collaborated with her mother, Willie Posey, a fashion designer, in the creation of tankas for the Slave Rape series and costumes for the Family of Woman mask series. During the Bicentennial year, Ringgold created an environmental performance piece, Resurrection of the Bicentennial Negro (1976). Then, for the first time, Ringgold travelled to Africa and toured Ghana and Nigeria. Having participated in Festac 77 in Lagos, Nigeria, Ringgold began to create freestanding soft sculptures. She received the National Endowment for the Arts Award for sculpture in 1978, and developed her International Doll Collection. Ringgold had long been inspired by her mother’s work as a designer. As a final collaborative project, the two women completed a quilt, Echoes of Harlem (1980) for an exhibition Artist and the Quilt. Ringgold’s story quilts followed and include Who’s Afraid of Aunt Jemima (1983) and Wedding Lover’s Quilt (1986). A 25-year retrospective opened in 1990, and featured a 13-museum tour. Ringgold published her first children’s book Tar Beach in 1991, which received many awards and was followed by many others. Faith Ringgold received 21 honorary degrees, and established the Anyone Can Fly Foundation. This non-profit foundation was founded to promote artists working in the tradition of the African Diaspora and introduce these traditions to children as well as adults.

Joan Marter. "Ringgold, Faith." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press, accessed September 21, 2015, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T072224.

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