Ringgold, Faith (1930-2024), was an African American painter, sculptor, and children’s author. As an artist, Ringgold was best known for her ”story quilts,” which combine painted images and texts on fabric to tell stories. For example, Street Story (1985) follows the rise of an inner-city African American boy who becomes a successful writer in Hollywood.
Ringgold’s paintings of the 1960’s were inspired by the civil rights movement. In the 1970’s, she created “soft sculptures.” These full-sized portraits of notable African Americans and others were created from foam rubber, coconuts, and wigs made of yarn. Ringgold later used these sculptures as characters and props in performance pieces she presented with her two daughters.
Ringgold made her first story quilt in 1980. One of her most famous quilts is Tar Beach (1988), which portrays a Black child named Cassie. Cassie talks about her dreams while lying on the tarpaper roof of a building in the Harlem area of New York City during the 1930’s. Ringgold adapted the quilt story into her first children’s book, Tar Beach (1991). Her other children’s books featuring Cassie include Counting to Tar Beach and Cassie’s Colorful Day (both 1999) and Cassie’s Word Quilt (2002). Ringgold also wrote and illustrated such books as Aunt Harriet’s Underground Railroad in the Sky (1992), Dinner at Aunt Connie’s House (1993), and Harlem Renaissance Party (2015). She also wrote an autobiography, We Flew Over the Bridge (1995).
Ringgold was born Faith Jones in Harlem on Oct. 8, 1930. In 1962, she married her second husband, Burdette Ringgold, a long-time friend and automobile factory worker. Faith Ringgold received a B.S. degree in 1955 and an M.A. degree in 1959 from the City College of the City University of New York. She taught art in New York City public schools from 1955 to 1973 and was a professor of art at the University of California at San Diego from 1984 to 2002. She died on April 13, 2024.
