Source: The Washington Post / Getty
The famous artist and Harlem, New York, Native Faith Ringgold, who blazed a trail for black female artists for decades, has died.
On Saturday (April 13), Iconic artist Faith Ringgold, whose work as a multimedia artist and writer left an indelible impact on other black artists and museums, died at her home in Englewood, New Jersey, after a period of ill health, according to same. daughter Barbara Wallace; Ringgold was 93 years old. The news of her death was first reported by her assistant, Grace Matthews.
Ms. Ringgold's artwork can be found in many museums and institutions around the world, including the Guggenheim Museum, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the American Craft Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Museum of Fine Art in Boston. Her artwork, steeped in her own experiences and inspiration from Tibetan quilt art, stood out as highly personal and immersive.
Ringgold became known for her “story quilts” that conveyed the depth of Black life and especially the joys and struggles of Black women. “I think of quilts as the classic Black art form in America,” she said in an interview in 2005. “When the African slaves came to America, they couldn't do their carving anymore. They had separated from their religion. So they took pieces of cloth and made them into blankets for the master and for themselves.”
She was born in Harlem, New York in 1930 to a seamstress and a dress designer – the two would continue to collaborate on her future works. Ringgold taught art in the New York public school system while beginning her career as a painter. She also fought for the inclusion of black and women artists in museums from 1968. “I became a feminist out of disgust at the way women were marginalized in the art world,” she told New York Times in 2019, adding, “I began to incorporate this perspective into my work, with a particular focus on enslaved black women and their sexual exploitation.”
Ringgold also created several public works, including “Flying Home: Harlem Heroes and Heroines” mosaic murals found at the 125th Street subway station in her hometown of Harlem. He also became a children's book author and would receive several awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and a Guggenheim Fellowship in addition to honorary doctorates.