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Creator
Ringgold, Faith
Call number
Sc MIRS Ringgold
Physical description
10 video_recordings
Language
English
Preferred Citation
The Art of Faith Ringgold documentary collection, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division, The New York Public Library
Sponsor
An anonymous donor funded preliminary processing for this collection. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation supported a research library-wide grant for the digitization, and funded the Schomburg for the description and production of the finding aid as part of The Next Century of Black Studies Project.
Repository
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division
Access to materials
Appointment preferred: Request an in-person research appointment.

Faith Ringgold (1930-2024) was an American painter, mixed media sculptor, performance artist, author, teacher, and activist. The collection consists of ten videos dating from 1986 to 1987. The bulk of the collection is footage from the documentary The Art of Faith Ringgold (1987) by Jill Strauss.

Biographical/historical information

Faith Ringgold (1930-2024) was an American painter, mixed media sculptor, performance artist, author, teacher, and activist. In 1983, Ringgold developed story quilts as an original art form, incorporating narrative text and imagery that addressed issues of race, gender, and social justice. Her quilts are a central focus of Jill Strauss's documentary, and the collection.

Over the course of sixty years, Ringgold's quilt works, paintings, and textile sculptures have been the subject of exhibitions and retrospectives at institutions around the world including the New Museum in New York City, New York. Public collections across the country have acquired Ringgold's artworks, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Ringgold authored a number of books, including the award-winning children's book Tar Beach (1991), inspired by her story quilt of the same name. For further titles and artworks, see the Related Materials note.

Scope and arrangement

The collection consists of ten videos dating from circa 1986 to 1987.

The The Art of Faith Ringgold documentary collection is arranged in two series:

  • SERIES I: FOOTAGE: RINGGOLD

    The series includes ten videos dating from circa 1987, organized alphabetically by title. The titles originated from the donor unless otherwise indicated. Jill Strauss directed and edited the short documentary The Art of Faith Ringgold (1987) as part of her undergraduate senior project at State University of New York (SUNY), Purchase. The footage includes the documentary, as well as interviews with Ringgold, and footage of her story quilts. Since 2014, Strauss has been a professor of Conflict Resolution and Communications in the Speech, Communications and Theater Arts department at City University of New York, Borough of Manhattan Community College.

  • SERIES II: FOOTAGE: OTHER

    The series contains one video that was not part of the documentary.

Administrative information

Source of acquisition

Jill Strauss, 2006.

Processing information

Collection inventoried by Nathan Evans. Collection processed and described by Lyric Evans-Hunter, archivist; and Shola Lynch, curator. Finding aid published in 2024.

Related Material

See the Moving Image and Recorded Sound, Art and Artifacts, and Jean Blackwell Hutson Research and Reference divisions for additional material by, or featuring, Ringgold, as well as material by her daughter, the writer and academic, Michele Wallace.

Using the collection

Location

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division
515 Malcolm X Boulevard, New York, NY 10037-1801
Third Floor

Access to materials

Appointment preferred: Request an in-person research appointment.