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.