In Memoriam: Professor Emerita of Visual Arts Faith Ringgold

It is with deep sorrow that we acknowledge the passing of Professor Emerita of Visual Arts Faith Ringgold, a renowned artist, author and activist. She died, at age 93, on April 13, 2024, in Englewood, N.J.

Ringgold has been recognized internationally as one of the most iconic forces shaping the postwar art and visual culture of the United States over the past 60 years. In painting, sculpture, quilts, masks, dolls, performance and authored and illustrated books, she explored the politics of race, gender, class, family, community and personal experience. Her work introduced Black women’s pictorial, narrative and craft traditions in an art scene initially dominated by abstraction and minimalism.

Beginning in the late 1960s, Ringgold helped to organize demonstrations against the Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, calling for women and Black artists to be better represented in shows and collections. Her oil paintings of this time made a statement, including the American People Series, which addressed racial conflict and inequitable distribution of power in the U.S.

By the next decade, Ringgold shifted to working with fabric, creating soft sculptures, masks and cloth murals called “tankas,”—Tibetan paintings of spiritual figures on cotton or silk. Through these works, Ringgold challenged accepted hierarchies of medium and form, bringing the social history of forms of expressive practice in the domestic sphere and in Black cultures into galleries and museums.

Ringgold is best known for her story quilts. She began with the pivotal work, Who’s Afraid of Aunt Jemima in 1983, followed by Slave Rape Story Quilt in 1985. Four years later, she created her most celebrated story quilt Tar Beach (1988), which is now in the collection of the Guggenheim Museum. The work inspired Ringgold to write and illustrate a children’s book of the same name, narrated from the point of view of a young girl shown relaxing with other residents on the tar-papered roof of a Harlem apartment home. The book has won over 20 awards, including the Caldecott Medal and the Coretta Scott King award for best illustrated children’s book of 1991. She went on to illustrate more than 20 children’s books in total.

Born in 1930 in Harlem, New York, Ringgold earned a bachelor’s degree in 1955 and a master’s degree in 1959 in visual art from the City College of New York. In her lifetime, she received 23 honorary doctorates. Ringgold joined UC San Diego as a visiting professor in 1984 and became full professor in 1985.

At UC San Diego, Ringgold brought her dynamic mixed media approach and a focus on social history and identity to classes in studio. Her instruction centered textiles along with writing, mixed media and socially engaged practice—an approach that would become a cornerstone of the department’s identity. She was also an influential voice in the department during its broadening of vision to include art history and media among its majors.

In addition to teaching, Ringgold dedicated her time to serving students as presider of two Undergraduate Research Conferences, participated in graduate admissions and critique committees, and assisted in MFA reviews. She also presented at numerous conferences, hosted workshops and led book readings. After an impactful 18 years at UC San Diego, she became professor emerita in 2002.

Over the course of her career, Ringgold earned many accolades, from a Guggenheim Fellowship to several grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her work is held in the permanent collections of prestigious institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim Museum, the Smithsonian, the Whitney and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.

Faith was preceded in death by her husband, Burdette Ringgold, who died in 2020. She is survived by her daughters, linguist Barbara Faith Wallace and feminist cultural critic and historian Michele Faith Wallace; three grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

UC San Diego is joined by an international community that stands in honor of her profound life and legacy. Plans for an event celebrating her work will be announced in the Visual Arts Department Newsletter in fall 2024. Learn more about Faith Ringgold on the Department of Visual Arts website. Donations in her honor can be made to the Anyone Can Fly Foundation, a 501(c)(3) organization devoted to expanding the art establishment's canon to include artists of the African Diaspora and to introduce the Great Masters of African American Art and their art traditions to children and adult audiences. The Foundation is currently preserving the artist's New Jersey home and studio as a showcase for art of the African diaspora.

Elizabeth H. Simmons
Executive Vice Chancellor

Cristina Della Coletta
Dean, School of Arts and Humanities

Ricardo Dominguez
Chair, Department of Visual Arts