Faith Ringgold

Faith Ringgold (born Faith Willi Jones; October 8, 1930) is an American painter, painting on different materials including fabric, a published author, mixed media sculptor, performance artist, and intersectional activist, perhaps best known for her narrative quilts.

Faith Willi Jones was born the youngest of three children on October 8, 1930, in Harlem Hospital, New York City.

Her parents, Andrew Louis Jones and Willi Posey Jones, were descendants of working-class families displaced by the Great Migration.

Ringgold's mother was a fashion designer and her father, as well as working a range of jobs, was an avid storyteller.

They raised her in an environment that encouraged her creativity.

After the Harlem Renaissance, Ringgold's childhood home in Harlem became surrounded by a thriving arts scene – where figures such as Duke Ellington and Langston Hughes lived just around the corner.

Her childhood friend, Sonny Rollins, who would grow up to be a prominent jazz musician, often visited her family and practiced saxophone at their parties.

Because of her chronic asthma, Ringgold explored visual art as a major pastime through the support of her mother, often experimenting with crayons as a young girl.

She also learned how to sew and work creatively with fabric from her mother.

Ringgold maintains that despite her upbringing in Great Depression-era Harlem, 'this did not mean [she] was poor and oppressed' – she was 'protected from oppression and surrounded by a loving family.' With all of these influences combined, Ringgold's future artwork was greatly affected by the people, poetry, and music she experienced in her childhood, as well as the racism, sexism, and segregation she dealt with in her everyday life.

In 1948, due to pressure from her family, Ringgold enrolled at the City College of New York to major in art, but was forced to major in art education instead, as City College only allowed women to be enrolled in certain majors.

In 1950, she married a jazz pianist named Robert Earl Wallace and had two children, Michele and Barbara Faith Wallace, in 1952.

Ringgold and Wallace separated four years later due to his heroin addiction.

In the meantime, she studied with artists Robert Gwathmey and Yasuo Kuniyoshi.

She was also introduced to printmaker Robert Blackburn, with whom she would collaborate on a series of prints 30 years later.

Ringgold began her painting career in the 1950s after receiving her degree.

Her early work is composed with flat figures and shapes.

In 1955, Ringgold received her bachelor's degree from City College and soon afterward taught in the New York City public school system.

In 1959, she received her master's degree from City College and left with her mother and daughters on her first trip to Europe.

While traveling abroad in Paris, Florence, and Rome, Ringgold visited many museums, including the Louvre.

She was inspired by the writings of James Baldwin and Amiri Baraka, African art, Impressionism, and Cubism to create the works she made in the 1960s.

Though she received a great deal of attention with these images, many of her early paintings focused on the underlying racism in everyday activities; which made sales difficult, and disquieted galleries and collectors.

These works were also politically based and reflected her experiences growing up during the Harlem Renaissance – themes which matured during the Civil Rights Movement and Women's movement.

This trip was abruptly cut short, however, due to the untimely death of her brother in 1961.

Ringgold, her mother, and her daughters all returned to the US for his funeral.

She married Burdette Ringgold on May 19, 1962.

Taking inspiration from artist Jacob Lawrence and writer James Baldwin, Ringgold painted her first political collection named the American People Series in 1963, which portrays the American lifestyle in relation to the Civil Rights Movement.

American People Series illustrates these racial interactions from a female point of view, and calls basic racial issues in America into question.

In 1972, as part of a commission sponsored by the Creative Artists Public Service Program, Ringgold installed For the Women's House in the Women's Facility on Rikers Island.

The large-scale mural is an anti-carceral work, composed of depictions of women in professional and civil servant roles, representing positive alternatives to incarceration.

In 1973, she quit teaching public school to devote herself to creating art full-time.

Ringgold visited West Africa twice: once in 1976 and again in 1977.

These travels would deeply influence her mask making, doll painting and sculptures.

Ringgold's artistic practice is extremely varied – from painting to quilts, from sculptures and performance art to children's books.

As an educator, she taught in both the New York City Public school system and at college level.

This museum in particular inspired her future series of quilt paintings known as The French Collection (1991–1997).

In 1995, she was approached by ACA Galleries for exclusive representation and is represented by them to this day.

In a 2019 article with Hyperallergic magazine, Ringgold explained that her choice for a political collection comes from the turbulent atmosphere around her: "( ... ) it was the 1960s and I could not act like everything was okay. I couldn't paint landscapes in the 1960s – there was too much going on. This is what inspired the American People Series."

This revelation stemmed from her work being rejected by Ruth White, a gallery owner in New York.

Oil paintings like For Members Only, Neighbors, Watching and Waiting, and The Civil Rights Triangle also embody these themes.