Contents
Faith Ringgold
Creating story quilts that combine painting, fabric and written narratives about Black American lives.
American People Series #20: Die · Who’s Afraid of Aunt Jemima?
- Born
- 8 October 1930
- Birthplace
- Harlem, New York, United States
- Died
- 13 April 2024
More people
Faith Ringgold
Faith Ringgold was an American artist, writer and teacher whose paintings and quilts explored race, gender and family. Her work also reached children through books such as Tar Beach.
Early life
A creative Harlem home
Her mother designed clothes and taught her to sew; music and storytelling surrounded her childhood.
Art education
Studied at City College of New York and became a public-school art teacher.
Career
- 1960s
Political painting
Developed the American People series amid civil-rights struggles.
- 1970s
Beyond the canvas
Worked with performance, masks and fabric while campaigning for fairer museum representation.
- 1980s
Story quilts
Brought painted scenes, sewn borders and handwritten stories into a distinctive format.
- 1991
Children’s literature
Published Tar Beach, adapting a story quilt into a picture book.
Selected work
American People Series #20: Die
A large painting confronting racial violence.
Who’s Afraid of Aunt Jemima?
An early story quilt reimagining a stereotyped figure through a family narrative.
Tar Beach
A girl imagines flying above the city from a Harlem rooftop.
Tar Beach, the book
A picture-book version of the rooftop story.
Beyond the studio
Museum activism
Protested the exclusion of Black artists and women from major exhibitions.
Teaching and family
Taught at the University of California, San Diego; her daughter Michele Wallace became a writer and critic.
Sources & photo credit
Life, career and references ↗Museum or specialist research ↗University memorial ↗Tar Beach exhibition ↗Photo: Gordon Alexander. Public domain · Original image. Cropped and displayed in monochrome.
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