Faith Ringgold (American) b. 1930, The Sunflower Quilting Bee at Arles, 1991 Acrylic on canvas, tie dyed, pieced fabric border, 74 X 80, Private Collection

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Faith Ringgold (American) b. 1930, The Sunflower
Quilting Bee at Arles, 1991Acrylic on canvas,
tie dyed, pieced fabric border, 74 X 80,
Private Collection
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Vincent van Gogh (Dutch) 1853-1890Sunflowers
1888. Oil on Canvas, 36 X28 National Gallery,
London
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Faith Ringgold Vincent Van Gogh
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(No Transcript)
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• In The Quilting Bee at Arles, Ringgold depicts
  a number of famous black women from different
  time periods called together by Aunt Melissa for
  an imaginary quilting bee.
• The location of this quilting bee is the
  southern French town of Arles, where Vincent van
  Gogh (1853-1890) had painted his famous still
  life, The Sunflowers (1888).
• Even though his works have become some of the
  most famous and best loved in the world, van Gogh
  could not sell his art while he was alive.

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• Ringgold uses the figure of van Gogh to
  symbolize the Western stereotype of a great
  artist as a lone male genius.
• She sees a parallel in the tragic life of van
  Gogh to the sometimes-tragic lives of the notable
  black women she has chosen to depict.
• Each of these women took a stand on their own
  for freedom. Like the work of van Gogh, their
  brave and difficult commitment to equality was
  justified over the course of time.
• The women are pictured as quilters in order to
  piece together a better world, perhaps suggesting
  the value of collaboration versus the lone
  individual.
• Content is the message the artwork communicates.
  It is the meaning of the work.

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Those portrayed are

• Madame C.J. Walker, the first self-made,
  American-born female millionaire (inventor of the
  hair-straightening comb) and a woman who gave her
  money to educational causes
• Sojourner Truth could neither read nor write, but
  spoke brilliantly regarding womens rights during
  slavery
• Ida B. Wells exposed the horrors of lynching in
  the South.
• Fannie Lou Hamer braved great odds to register
  thousands of people to vote
• Harriet Tubman, who brought over 300 slaves to
  freedom on the Underground Railroad during the
  era of slavery in the U.S.
• Rosa Parks, whose refusal to sit at the back of a
  segregated bus ignited the U.S. civil rights
  protests of the 1950s and 1960s
• Mary McLeod Bethune founded Bethune Cookman
  College and was an advisor to Presidents Truman
  and Roosevelt and
• Ella Baker organized thousands of people to
  improve the condition of poor housing, jobs, and
  consumer education.