
“Who said that art is oil paint stretched on canvas with art frames? I didn’t say that. Nobody who ever looked like me said that, so why the hell am I doing that? So, I just stopped; and now I do sewing and all kinds of things.”~Faith Ringgold
Acrylic on canvas framed in cloth
53 x 32 in.
The Feminist Series comprises 20 paintings representing lush landscapes. Into the skies of these scenes, Ringgold wrote – in finely rendered vertical gold lettering – quotes by abolitionist and feminist Black women from the times of slavery until 1972, among them abolitionists Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, women’s rights advocate Clarissa Lawrence, publisher Amy Jacques-Garvey, and 1972 presidential candidate Shirley Chisholm, who had also been the first Black woman elected to congress.
The work titled Feminist Series #10: Of My Two Handicaps is a colorful painting of treetops surrounded by a rich red, gold and patterned fabric frame. In the sky above the trees there is a quote by Shirley Chisholm from an article on Black female public officials in the December 1973 issue of Ebony Magazine: “Of my two handicaps, being female put many more obstacles in my path than being black.”
In the Feminist Series Ringgold also introduces a formal element into her work that will become increasingly essential in her career, the use of textile and its formal qualities. When Ringgold was in Europe during the summer of 1972, she had seen Tibetan works of art called thankas where Buddhist images are painted onto fabric that could be rolled up for transport and storage. Upon her return, Ringgold began working on the Feminist Series. She adhered her paintings to fabric that could be rolled and framed the paintings with silk and brocade borders and adorned them with braided cords and tassels. She had also previously studied African crafts and textiles and used the Kuba patterns in her Black Light paintings, and became increasingly interested in the history of African-American textile work.
Most importantly, removing wood stretchers from her paintings had enormous practical and economic benefits: Ringgold would now be able to easily and inexpensively transport and store her work.