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Sunflower Quilting Bee at Arles

Print
1996 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Faith Ringgold is widely regarded as one of the most important African American artists of the 20th century. Since the 1980s her work has centred on the domestic tradition of quilt making, which was frequently a communal and mutually advantageous activity. It was also a way of storytelling, both in the imagery of the quilt itself and during the hours the women spent together sewing. Ringgold devised a way of transcribing the quilt into painting. In the 1990s she began to make 'painted quilts'. These subvert and challenge the cultural hegemony of European and white artistic activity, as represented by the paintings in the Louvre in Paris.

This print is based on one of these paintings, by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. A group of African American women who helped to change the face of black history in the USA take over the pictorial space, while the famous European artist, standing in the background, serves to remind them of their tormentors. Van Gogh's psychological illness serves as a paradigm for the sickness of the whole white culture. This itself may be tormented now by its memory of the pain inflicted on the African American community.

Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleSunflower Quilting Bee at Arles (assigned by artist)
Materials and techniques
Colour lithograph
Brief description
'Sunflower Quilting Bee at Arles', colour lithograph, by Faith Ringgold, printed by the Rutgers Centre for Innovative Print and Paper, New Brunswick, 1996
Physical description
Colour lithograph; image predominanlty green, yellow and dark brown, showing a group of black women in line, holding up a quilt with a design of sunflowers; behind them to the right, a white male figure in sun hat, with red beard, clutching a bunch of sunflowers, represents the artist Vincent Van Gogh.
Dimensions
  • Height: 57.3cm
  • Width: 76.3cm
the image is printed to the margins of the sheet.
Style
Production typeLimited edition
Copy number
printer's proof
Marks and inscriptions
  • 'Faith Ringgold c 1996' (Signatureand date, lower right corner, black ink)
  • PP (Maker's identification; Lower left corner - on a figure; black ink)
    Translation
    Printer's proof.
  • RCIPP 96-304 (Maker's identification; on back of sheet in bottom left corner; pencil)
    Translation
    Rutgers Centre for Innovative Print and Paper 1996, no. 304
  • RCIPP (Publisher's identification; on back bottom left corner; blind embossing)
Credit line
Purchased through the Julie and Robert Breckman Print Fund
Production
The image derives from one of the quilted paintings in the series by Ringgold entitled 'The French Collection' 1991
Subjects depicted
Place depicted
Summary
Faith Ringgold is widely regarded as one of the most important African American artists of the 20th century. Since the 1980s her work has centred on the domestic tradition of quilt making, which was frequently a communal and mutually advantageous activity. It was also a way of storytelling, both in the imagery of the quilt itself and during the hours the women spent together sewing. Ringgold devised a way of transcribing the quilt into painting. In the 1990s she began to make 'painted quilts'. These subvert and challenge the cultural hegemony of European and white artistic activity, as represented by the paintings in the Louvre in Paris.

This print is based on one of these paintings, by the Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh. A group of African American women who helped to change the face of black history in the USA take over the pictorial space, while the famous European artist, standing in the background, serves to remind them of their tormentors. Van Gogh's psychological illness serves as a paradigm for the sickness of the whole white culture. This itself may be tormented now by its memory of the pain inflicted on the African American community.
Bibliographic reference
For text on the French Collection see Michelle Wallace "The French Collection" in Dan Cameron etc: 'Dancing at the Louvre' New Mueum of Contemporary Art New York, University of California Press, 1998.
Collection
Accession number
E.879-2003

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Record createdJanuary 4, 2004
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