biografia di Faith RINGGOLD (1930-2024)

Birth place: NYC

Addresses: NYC

Profession: Painter, craftsperson, sculptor, performance artist, educator

Studied: City College NY, with Yasuo Kuniyoshi & Robert Gwathmey (B.S., 1955; M.F.A., 1959)

Exhibited: Spectrum Gal., NYC, 1967, 1970 (solo); Univ. Iowa, 1971-72; Carroll Reece Mus., Johnson City, TX; MoMA (Martin Luther King, Jr. Exh.); Harlem Cultural Council; Metropolitan Applied Research Co., NYC; Lever House Gal., NYC; Nat. Acad. Art; Phila. Civic Center Mus.; NC A&T Univ.; Martha Jackson Gal., NYC, 1970; NY Shakespeare Festival Pub. Theatre, 1970; Illinois Bell Tel. Co., 1971-72; NY State Dept. Educ., 1971 (solo); State Armory, Wilmington, DE, 1971; Illinois State Mus., Springfield, 1971-72; Sloane Gals., Valpariaso, IN, 1971-72; Peoria (IL) Art Guild, 1971-72; Burpee Gallery, Rockford, IL, 1971-72; Davenport Munic. Gal., 1971-72; Kalamazoo (MI) College, 1971-72; Mus. Nat. Center Afro-Am. Artists, Boston, 1971; Univ. New Hampshire, 1971; Currier Gal. Art, Manchester, NH, 1971; Bank St. College, NYC, 1971; Acts of Art Gal., NYC, 1971; NY Cultural Center, 1971; Finch College, 1971; Kunsthaus, Hamburg, Germany, 1972; Louisiana State Univ., 1972 (solo); Rutgers Univ., 1973 (solo).

Member: Women Students & Artists for Black Art Liberation; CAA; Women's Caucus Art

Work: Chase Manhattan Bank, NYC; Studio Mus., Harlem; High Mus. of Art, Atlanta, GA; MMA; Guggenheim Mus.; BMFA; MoMA; NY State Council Arts; Bank St. College Educ., NYC; mural, Riker's Island Women's House of Detention, NYC (1971)

Comments: Ringgold began addressing civil rights and political themes in her painting in 1967, looking to Africa for design sources. In the early 1970s, as she became increasingly community-minded and active, she began making works that could be easily transported to her performances at lecture halls and college campuses. In these cloth hangings and soft sculptures she drew on African forms and craft techniques, using the works express social messages. Throughout the 1970s, Ringgold was an important figure in organizing protests against the exclusion of women artists from exhibitions and museums, particulary focusing attention on the lack of black women artists represented.

Sources: Rubinstein, American Women Artists, 425-26; Baigell, Dictionary; Cederholm, Afro-American Artists; Cassandra L. Langer and Joanna Frueh, co-eds., Feminist Art Criticism: An Anthology (1988)