The pioneering visual artist Faith Ringgold, whose body of work spanned paintings, sculptures, performance art, and widely celebrated story quilts, died this week at 93. Throughout her career, Ringgold was known not only for her creative output, but also her commitment to Black liberation, feminism, the Art Workers Coalition (the group that eventually convinced MoMA and other museums to institute a free-admission day), and a host of other activist groups and causes.
“No other creative field is as closed to those who are not white and male as is the visual arts,” Ringgold once said. “After I decided to be an artist, the first thing that I had to believe was that I, a Black woman, could penetrate the art scene, and that, further, I could do so without sacrificing one iota of my Blackness or my femaleness or my humanity.” That refusal to sacrifice her core identity was a major part of what made Ringgold such an iconoclast.
In honor of her life, we’ve gathered five of her most significant artworks—along with details about where to see them in person.
The Civil Rights Triangle, 1963 (from the American People Series, currently at the Glenstone Museum in Maryland)
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