Focus on The French Collection and explore the History.
Ringgold began working on The French Collection in 1990 and finished the bulk of the series in 1991. #10: Jo Baker's Birthday; #11: Le Café des Artistes; and #12: Moroccan Holiday were completed later, in 1993, 1994, and 1997, respectively. Ringgold traveled extensively in the early 1990s throughout France for visual inspiration using funding from her employer, the University of California, San Diego, as well as from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her travels included a three-month residency at La Napoule Art Foundation in Mandelieu-la-Napoule, where she first began the paintings. Artist Denise Mumm assisted with the quilting process and Lisa Yi, then Ringgold's assistant in New York, copied the written stories onto the works.The twelve quilts were exhibited together for the first time at Ringgold's show Dancing at the Louvre (1998-1999), originating at the New Museum in New York. The collection has only been exhibited together one time since the original showing, at Ringgold's retrospective Faith Ringgold: American People (2022), also originating at the New Museum.Ringgold continued the narrative begun in The French Collection in a second series of quilts, The American Collection (1997), which are meant to be understood as paintings by Willia Marie's daughter Marlena and do not include full stories in text.
New Museum National Endowment for the Arts New York quilt University of California, San Diego The American Collection Louvre Mandelieu-la-Napoule Faith Ringgold