Faith Ringgold Self-Portrait
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Object Details
- Date
- 1998
- Artist
- Faith Ringgold, 8 Oct 1930 - 12 Apr 2024
- Sitter
- Faith Ringgold, 8 Oct 1930 - 12 Apr 2024
- Exhibition Label
- Born New York City
- Faith Ringgold based her 1995 artist’s book, Seven Passages to a Flight, and this accompanying quilt, on memories of her Harlem childhood. Her mother, Madame Willi Posey, a fashion designer, taught Ringgold to sew at a young age. In the 1970s, the artist began creating innovative story quilts that draw inspiration from Tibetan tankas, African piecework, and African American quilts. Her textiles challenge traditional artistic hierarchies favoring painting and sculpture.
- An activist for racial and gender equality, Ringgold used the bridge, which she could see from her tar-covered Harlem rooftop, to symbolize opportunity. For her, flying, a metaphor for overcoming challenges, was “about achieving a seemingly impossible goal with no more guarantee of success than an avowed commitment to do it.” Ringgold explained further in her children's book Tar Beach (1991), “Anyone can fly. All you have to do is have somewhere to go that you can’t get to any other way.”
- Nacida en la Ciudad de Nueva York
- Faith Ringgold basó su libro de artista Seven Passages to a Flight y esta colcha acompañante en recuerdos de su niñez en Harlem. Su madre, Madame Willi Posey, era modista y la enseñó a coser desde pequeña. En la década de 1970 empezó a crear “colchas narrativas” inspiradas en los tankas tibetanos, las telas africanas y las colchas de retazos afroamericanas. Estos trabajos cuestionan las jerarquías artísticas tradicionales que favorecen a la pintura y la escultura.
- Defensora de la igualdad racial y de género, Ringgold usó el puente (que veía desde su azotea recubierta de brea en Harlem) como símbolo de oportunidades. Para ella, el vuelo representaba la superación de los obstáculos, “lograr una meta que parece imposible sin más garantía de éxito que el compromiso manifiesto de hacerlo”. En su libro infantil Tar Beach (1991), explicó: “Cualquiera puede volar. Todo lo que necesitas es querer ir a un lugar al que no puedes llegar de ningún otro modo”.
- Topic
- Self-portrait
- Decorative Arts\Textile\Quilt
- Faith Ringgold: Female
- Faith Ringgold: Visual Arts\Artist\Sculptor
- Faith Ringgold: Visual Arts\Artist\Painter
- Portrait
- See more items in
- National Portrait Gallery Collection
- Location
- Currently not on view
- Credit Line
- National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution
- Data Source
- National Portrait Gallery
- Object number
- NPG.2004.25
- Type
- Textile
- Restrictions & Rights
- Usage conditions apply
- Copyright
- © Faith Ringold / Artists Rights Society (ARS)
- Medium
- Hand-painted etching & pochoir borders on linen with quilted cotton border and nylon backing
- Dimensions
- Quilt: 128.4 x 109.3cm (50 9/16 x 43 1/16")
- Metadata Usage
- Usage conditions apply
- Record ID
- npg_NPG.2004.25