by Brianna Rae
Faith Ringgold, world-famous painter, writer, sculptor, and performance artist, was born Faith Willi Jones on October 8, 1930 in Harlem, New York City. Her mother a fashion designer and her father a great storyteller, Ringgold was surrounded by the arts from an early age. She was also born into the thriving arts scene of the Harlem Renaissance, where she counted Duke Ellington and Langston Hughes as her neighbors, and Sonny Rollins a childhood friend.
In 1950, Ringgold began studying art education (she wanted to study just art, but being an artist was considered exclusively a male profession at the time) at City College of New York. She then married jazz pianist Robert Earl Wallace, with whom she had two children and divorced four years later.
After receiving her bachelor and master’s degree, she taught for the New York Public School System and traveled through Europe and West Africa studying art. Influenced by her travels, childhood experiences, and people she became close to, Ringgold’s own art consisted of broad and diverse expressions and mediums.
Inspired by the writings of Amiri Baraka and James Baldwin, and by African art, Impressionism, and Cubism, Ringgold was key in helping to create and define a modern Black artistic aesthetic. Her work incorporated the underlying racism and sexism of everyday life, before racial and sexual politics rose to maturity and prominence with the Civil Rights and Women’s Movements.
In addition to her painting, she also began to experiment with storytelling through quilting in the 1970s, and created many famous pieces, including The Slave Rape Series, Echoes of Harlem (1980), and Who’s Afraid of Aunt Jemima (1983).
Throughout the seventies, she began to create mixed-media sculptures and masks, which progressed into her doing performance art, incorporating African elements of storytelling such as dance, music, and costumes. She also wrote and illustrated 17 children’s books.
In addition to her art, Ringgold was heavily involved in activism, particularly feminist and anti-racism organizing. She got arrested for protesting the lack of Black and female artists in exhibitions and museums, and that year also founded the Women Students and Artists for Black Liberation with her daughter, Michelle Wallace. Ringgold and Wallace also became founding members of the National Black Feminist Organization in 1974.
Ringgold has won numerous awards and honorary degrees. She elevated the status of ‘women’s work’ or ‘craft’ to the level of high art, and also portrayed and celebrated underrepresented Black culture and life in her work. She lives with her husband Burdette Ringgold in New Jersey, where she still makes art.
Frida Kahlo de Rivera was born as Magdalena Carmen Frieda Kahlo y Calderon on July 6, 1907. She is known as one of Mexico’s greatest painters and is celebrated internationally for her portrayal of Mexican indigenous and cultural traditions and for her depiction of female form and experience.
Kahlo grew up in a small town outside of Mexico City during the Mexican Revolution. She suffered health issues all of her life, and in 1925 was involved in a serious bus accident, resulting in the breaking of her spine, collarbone, ribs, pelvis, and leg, and the puncturing of her abdomen and uterus. The accident left her immobilized with extreme pain and the inability to bear children, both of which greatly influenced her decision to pursue art instead of medicine.
She created over 140 paintings and numerous drawings and studies, often choosing to do self portraits because “I am often alone and I am the subject I know best,” said Kahlo. Her work incorporated symbolism, Mexican mythology and indigenous traditions, and portrayals of psychological and physical trauma and wounds. Though others have labeled her as a surrealist painter, she rejected the label, stating “I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.”
Kahlo is also known for her tumultuous relationship and marriage to famed Mexican painter and muralist, Diego Rivera. The couple married in 1929, divorced in 1939, and remarried in 1940.
Kahlo and Rivera were active Communists and befriended Leon Trotsky and his wife during the 1930s.
Kahlo continued to suffer from health issues, and by the 1950s, her leg had to be amputated. She suffered frequent anxiety attacks and increased her morphine consumption. On July 13, 1954, Kahlo died shortly after her 47th birthday.
It wasn’t until decades after her death that Kahlo was widely recognized for being an accomplished and genius artist in her own right; she previously was known mostly as Diego Rivera’s wife. Today, she is one of the most celebrated and respected figures in modern art.