Faith Ringgold, 1930-2024

April 15, 2024 8:02 AM

Faith Ringgold passed over the weekend. A crafter, an artist, a thinker, a mentor. I am maybe not the best person to eulogize her, but her life and work have touched so many and deeply influenced generations of Black artists. Her passing is a loss, her memory will be a blessing.

Where have you seen her work? Here's one I can see regularly. Here's one at the Met. Here's one at the Studio Museum.

posted by Lawn Beaver (17 comments total)

I know Ringgold best for her children's books, especially Tar Beach, an absolute classic.

You can hear and see Ringgold reading Tar Beach on the MoMA web site here.
posted by Jeanne at 8:14 AM on April 15 [5 favorites]

Thanks for posting this! I was going to do a post this weekend, but ended up not having time to dig into creating a good set of links.

I was mostly familiar with her quilts. I've been trying to remember where I first saw one, but so far drawing a blank.

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posted by praemunire at 8:37 AM on April 15 [1 favorite]

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posted by dlugoczaj at 9:03 AM on April 15

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posted by rustcellar at 9:30 AM on April 15

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posted by Sublimity at 10:03 AM on April 15

Faith Ringgold Perfectly Captured the Pitch of America’s Madness
posted by praemunire at 10:27 AM on April 15 [2 favorites]

Faith was my teacher at UCSD a million years ago. At the beginning, I have to say that everyone in her class just hated her -- it was a photography class and she was meant to be teaching us darkroom skills...but it was abundantly clear that she had only the tiniest amount of darkroom experience, and what she did know, she was terrible at communicating. It was horrible, though looking back now I can understand that she was likely an assistant professor or an adjunct, probably forced into teaching this class by the nonsense of academia and department hierarchy.

Later, I had her again for a proper art class, and it was a complete 180 -- this genius woman, this true artist, was blessing us with her presence, her expansive knowledge, her lust for beauty and meaning in images. I adored her.

Plus, up until her quilt + book came out, I thought Tar Beach was just something my dad -- poor, white, Jewish, growing up in Brooklyn -- invented with his friends.

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posted by BlahLaLa at 11:10 AM on April 15 [7 favorites]

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posted by rrrrrrrrrt at 11:23 AM on April 15

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I enjoyed her exhibition at the Serpentine Gallery in London pre-covid, and there was a great BBC documentary about her around the same time.
posted by penguin pie at 11:38 AM on April 15

I went to that Serpentine exhibition too, and have my photographs from there as my screensaver on this very machine. Absolutely loved her stuff.
posted by Paul Slade at 12:13 PM on April 15 [1 favorite]

In February, I was stuck in Chicago for a night and a day (on Amtrak's dime) due to my Amtrak train being extremely delayed, and there being only one train a day to where I am in Michigan. Looking for something to do, I found my way to a Faith Ringgold retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art. I wasn't especially familiar with her work, but new and liked a bit of it. The retrospective was a wonderful experience. I learned a great deal about her and her work, and, without having any knowledge about it, found myself impressed by the curation, by the lighting, by the arrangement of the works. I am grateful to Amtrak for that opportunity.
posted by Well I never at 2:03 PM on April 15 [3 favorites]

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posted by TwoStride at 2:40 PM on April 15

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posted by Ten Cold Hot Dogs at 2:19 AM on April 16

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posted by mcbeth at 12:22 PM on April 16

Thank you for this post! I'm a huge fan of textile art and quilting as fine art but I somehow was not familiar with her work. This post introduced me to her and I am really grateful for that.
posted by lizard2590 at 9:45 AM on April 17 [1 favorite]

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posted by gudrun at 7:23 PM on April 18

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posted by batbat at 3:59 PM on April 19