FAITH RINGGOLD
Faith Ringgold, Illustration from Tar Beach, 1990. Image courtesy of the Artist and ACA Galleries, New York.
sugar hill songbook: select work by faith ringgold
ON VIEW October 17, 2018 - April 14, 2019
The Sugar Hill Children’s Museum of Art & Storytelling is delighted to celebrate the work of iconic American artist Faith Ringgold. Sugar Hill Songbook: Select Work by Faith Ringgold features a collection of works on paper, soft sculptures, quilts, and illustrations inspired by the rich cultural and political heritage of the artist’s home of Sugar Hill. The exhibition showcases work attesting to Ringgold’s relationship with jazz, while also framing her longstanding commitment to social and political activism. As the author and illustrator of seventeen acclaimed children’s books, art and storytelling from the pages of Harlem Renaissance Party, We Came to America, as well as Tar Beach, Faith Ringgold’s modern classic and first published book for young readers, will also be featured throughout the exhibition.
Sugar Hill Songbook: Select Work by Faith Ringgold will be on view from October 17, 2018 through March 31, 2019. It will be accompanied by a year-long program of intergenerational activities exploring the global impact of the life and legacy of Faith Ringgold and how she has sparked the imaginations of children through art and storytelling, empowering them and their families to better understand and address the complexities of racism, representation, and identity with dignity and hope.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Faith Ringgold is an internationally celebrated artist, educator, writer, and community activist. Her body of work, which spans more than six decades, includes profoundly human representations of African American history, themes, and individuals that have been excluded from representation within the American cultural canon. Through diverse media including painting, sculpture, quilting, performance art, writing, and illustration, Ringgold weaves brilliantly layered and highly engaging tales that are accessible for children, bearing witness to and celebrating neglected cultural and historic treasures.
Ringgold has received 22 honorary doctorates from The City University of New York and the Art Institute of Chicago, among others, and 80 awards including the National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, NAACP. Her work is included in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, National Museum of American Art, National Museum of Women in the Arts, Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Studio Museum in Harlem, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, and the High Museum of Art. Ringgold is Professor Emeritus at the University of California, San Diego, where she taught art from 1987 until 2002.
EXHIBITION HIGHLIGHTS
