(top)
Artist Faith Ringgold; (above) “Picasso’s Studio,” 1991, acrylic on
canvas, printed and tie-dyed fabric; (left) “Family of Women Series:
Bessie,” 1974, mixed media. © Faith Ringgold / Artists Rights Society
(ARS).
A career-spanning solo exhibit at Worcester Art Museum
Renowned American artist, author and activist Faith Ringgold, 93, has been from the start unstoppable. She turned that fact into a subject as she made her way in an unwelcoming white-male art world, transforming everyday materials — fabrics, posters, diaries, quilts — into potent works now in the collections of major museums worldwide.
Born in Harlem in 1930,
Ringgold experienced firsthand the vitality of the Harlem Renaissance,
and received bachelor’s and master’s degrees in visual art from the City
College of New York. Infused with African American history and culture,
including the Black matriarchal tradition that nurtured her, her works
span story quilts, prints, paintings, sculptures, books and
performances.
Ringgold
is the recipient of more than 80 awards, including 23 honorary
doctorates in fine arts, and she remains prominent. In 2019, London’s
Serpentine Galleries mounted a major Ringgold solo show. In 2022, her
works filled three floors of New York City’s New Museum in the artist’s
first hometown retrospective in 40 years.
Now,
the Worcester Art Museum is presenting Ringgold’s first solo exhibition
in New England in nearly 15 years. Organized by Samantha Cataldo,
associate curator of contemporary art, “Faith Ringgold: Freedom to Say
What I Please” is on view through March 17. The show offers the pleasure
of a close-up experience of 16 artworks by Ringgold in a variety of
media — including paintings, prints, textiles and life-size soft
sculptures.
“Picasso’s
Studio” (1991), in the first of the exhibition’s two galleries, is a
sort of manifesto. Drawn from the museum’s own collection, the work is
part of Ringgold’s 12-quilt series “The French Collection” (1991-1997),
semi-autobiographical vignettes that follow a young alter-ego in pre-war
Paris. Ringgold’s heroine poses in the center of the picture, serene
and confident, while Picasso paints her. Behind her
stand the fractured, African-influenced cubist figures of Picasso’s
iconic “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” (1907).
Bordering
the image is the heroine’s handwritten letter to her aunt, which
includes the words that give the exhibition its title: “You asked me
once why I wanted to become an artist … My art is my freedom to say what
I please.”
Nearby,
two exuberant ritual figures comprising masks and garments evoke African
artistic traditions Ringgold discovered in her travels.
“Family
of Women Series: Faith” (1973) is a self-portrait adorned with
glittering earrings. Its companion piece is a rendering of her Aunt
Bessie.
In the second
gallery, a storytelling quilt, “Tar Beach #2” (1990), is narrated by an
even younger alter-ego, a girl who gains the freedom to fly over Harlem
rooftops, the “tar beaches” where her family and friends enjoy their
summer evenings. Turned into children’s book the following year, “Tar
Beach” won more than 20 awards, including a Caldecott Honor Book and
Coretta Scott King Award for illustration.
A sampling of Ringgold’s sharp social commentary includes “Declaration of Freedom and Independence” (2007-8), six pairs of
drawings that juxtapose familiar historic events with scenes of trauma
or resilience experienced by Black people. One pair shows two founding
fathers of civil disobedience at work: Thomas Jefferson drafting the
Declaration of Independence, and Martin Luther King Jr. composing
“Letter from Birmingham City Jail.”
Extending
this encounter with the artist’s wit and warmth, the museum provides a
reading nook of books about and by Faith Ringgold, with a scene from
“Tar Beach” painted on the wall.
ON THE WEB
Learn more at worcesterart.org/exhibitions/faith-ringgold