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Faith Ringgold was an American artist who painted on fabric and stitched it into quilts, with handwritten stories around the image. Her story quilts put Black family life, history and dreams of freedom at the centre.

Faith Ringgold

ArtBiography

The story behind the card

Ringgold was born in Harlem, New York, in 1930 and first became known in the 1960s for paintings about the civil rights movement. She began her story quilts around 1980; the first, Echoes of Harlem, was made with her mother, the fashion designer Willi Posey, who had grown up with the African American quilting tradition. The best known, Tar Beach (1988), shows a girl named Cassie dreaming that she flies over the George Washington Bridge from her family's rooftop; 'tar beach' was the name for the tarred roofs where Harlem families went on hot summer nights. The text around the scene tells the story in Cassie's voice. Ringgold turned it into a picture book in 1991, which won a Caldecott Honor and the Coretta Scott King Award for illustration. She died in 2024, aged 93.

Türkçe oku
Amerikalı sanatçı Faith Ringgold, kumaşa resim yapıp bunları yorgan gibi dikti, görüntünün çevresine de elle hikâyeler yazdı. “Hikâye yorganları” adını verdiği bu eserlerin merkezinde siyahi ailelerin yaşamı, tarihi ve özgürlük düşleri vardı.

Ringgold 1930'da New York'un Harlem semtinde doğdu; ilk olarak 1960'larda sivil haklar hareketini konu alan resimleriyle tanındı. Hikâye yorganlarına 1980 dolaylarında başladı. İlki olan Echoes of Harlem'i, Afrikalı Amerikalıların yorgan geleneğiyle büyümüş moda tasarımcısı annesi Willi Posey ile birlikte yaptı. En bilineni olan Tar Beach (1988), Cassie adında bir kızın ailesinin damından George Washington Köprüsü'nün üzerine uçtuğunu hayal edişini anlatır. “Katran plajı” anlamına gelen ad, Harlem'de ailelerin sıcak yaz gecelerinde çıktığı katranlı damlara verilen lakaptır. Resmin çevresindeki yazı hikâyeyi Cassie'nin ağzından anlatır. Ringgold eseri 1991'de resimli bir çocuk kitabına dönüştürdü; kitap Caldecott Onur Ödülü'nü ve Coretta Scott King İllüstrasyon Ödülü'nü kazandı. Ringgold 2024'te 93 yaşında öldü.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Faith Ringgold
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