The French Collection
The French Collection is a series of twelve quilt paintings by American artist Faith Ringgold completed between 1991 and 1997. Divided into two parts composed of eight and four quilts each, the series utilizes Ringgold's distinct style of story quilts to tell the fictional story of a young African American woman in the 1920s, Willia Marie Simone, who leaves Harlem for Paris to live as an artist and model. The stories, illustrated in acrylic paint and written in ink surrounding the paintings, narrate Willia Marie's journey as she befriends famous artists, performers, writers, and activists, runs a café and works as a painter, and develops a distinct Black feminist intellectual worldview based on her experiences and identity. Willia Marie's interactions with notable modernist artists and their oeuvres are an archetypical example of Ringgold's responses to the predominantly white male artistic canon, wherein she often directly invoked, embraced, and challenged the central figures of modernist art.
Exhibited as a full set for the first time in 1998, five of the quilts are now located in public museums and galleries across the United States while the remaining seven are in private collections. The French Collection quilts are among Ringgold's most well-known works and have been extensively reproduced as prints, posters, and in popular media. Ringgold continued the narrative begun in this series with The American Collection.
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 her 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, 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, also originating at the New Museum.
Ringgold continued the narrative begun in The French Collection in a second series of quilts, The American Collection, which are meant to be understood as paintings by Willia Marie's daughter Marlena and do not include full stories in text.
Descriptions and locations
Each quilt is made with acrylic paint on canvas, patterned fabric, and text written in ink on canvas. The quilts tell the narrative of Willia Marie Simone, a 16-year-old African American girl who is moving from Harlem, New York, to Paris, in 1920 to paint and model. Willia Marie's Aunt Melissa gives her $500 for the journey and eventually agrees to care for her children, and they exchange letters over the course of her time in Europe. Ringgold's daughter has described the quilts and stories in The French Collection:While five of the quilts are located in public collections and a number of the quilts are owned by noted public figures, some are owned by unknown private collections and may be in the collection of the artist's estate or gallery.
''Part I, #1: Dancing at the Louvre'' (1991)
Dancing at the Louvre depicts Willia Marie and a stylish Black woman whose three daughters in colorful dresses are dancing happily in an art gallery at the Louvre. Several paintings are rendered on the wall behind the figures, including the Mona Lisa. In the written text, Willia Marie writes to her Aunt Melissa about a friend named Marcia, who scolded Willia Marie for not bringing her children with her to Europe. Ringgold modeled Marcia and her children on the artist's own children in real life, whom she did not bring to Europe with her on her trips for inspiration for the series.Dancing at the Louvre is in the collection of the Gund Gallery, Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio.
''Part I, #2: Wedding on the Seine'' (1991)
Wedding on the Seine depicts Willia Marie in a wedding dress, running across the Pont Neuf bridge over the Seine in Paris. The Île de la Cité and architecture of the city are visible behind her and tower over Willia Marie as she throws a bouquet into the river. The text provides background information about Willia Marie's marriage: she fears that marriage and children will harm her artistic career, but her wealthy French husband died after they were married for three years.As of 2022, Wedding on the Seine was in a private collection.
''Part I, #3: The Picnic at Giverny'' (1991)
Picnic at Giverny depicts Willia Marie painting a portrait of a group of brightly-dressed women standing and sitting at a picnic in front of a pond at Giverny, in addition to the artist Pablo Picasso who is posing nude on the ground wearing a hat, looking over his shoulder at the viewer. The women are various real-life patrons and artistic supporters of Ringgold's, including the artist Emma Amos. In the text, Willia Marie writes to her Aunt Melissa that she was invited to Giverny - Claude Monet's home at the time - to paint a portrait, and based the portrait on Édouard Manet's painting Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe. Willia Marie tells her Aunt that the inclusion of the elderly, naked Picasso was a reversal of the Manet work, in which the men are clothed and the women are naked. She also tells her Aunt that instead of painting strictly about the social ills of her time, she wants to paint things that will inspire and liberate her audience.As of 2022, The Picnic at Giverny was in the private collection of financier Eric S. Dobkin and his wife Barbara Dobkin.
''Part I, #4: Sunflowers Quilting Bee at Arles'' (1991)
Sunflowers Quilting Bee at Arles depicts a group of famous African American women creating a quilt patterned with sunflowers, while sitting in a field of sunflowers in Arles. The women are being approached by the artist Vincent van Gogh holding a vase filled with flowers and seem disturbed by his arrival. The women portrayed are Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Madam C. J. Walker, Ida B. Wells, Mary McLeod Bethune, Fannie Lou Hamer, Rosa Parks, and Ella Baker, who comprise the fictional National Sunflower Quilters Society of America. In the text, Willia Marie describes her conversations with the women, who are touring the world making quilts. They describe themselves as all artists and tell her that when they are finished quilting, they can move on to the "real art" of working toward a better world.Sunflowers Quilting Bee at Arles was originally made while Ringgold was creating other works commissioned by Oprah Winfrey. Ringgold included historical Black women in the painting that Winfrey admired and Winfrey subsequently purchased it. As of 2022, the work was still in Winfrey's private collection. In 2024, the work was exhibited for sale at the art fair EXPO Chicago, presented by Ringgold's then art dealer ACA Galleries.
''Part I, #5: Matisse's Model'' (1991)
Matisse's Model depicts Willia Marie reclining nude, modeling for the artist Henri Matisse who is standing in the corner holding a paint palette. Above Willia Marie, Matisse's painting Dance hangs on the wall. The version of Dance depicted is the version owned by the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia, which uses a darker red paint than the version owned by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In the text, Willia Marie reflects on race and beauty standards for Black women.Matisse's Model is in the collection of the Baltimore Museum of Art.
''Part I, #6: Matisse's Chapel'' (1991)
Matisse's Chapel depicts a large group of Black elders, parents, and children sitting and standing inside the Chapelle du Rosaire de Vence, a chapel elaborately decorated with artworks by Henri Matisse and often referred to as the Matisse Chapel. The group are all deceased members of Ringgold's real family, including her mother, known to the family as Momma Jones, and her great grandmother, Betsy Bingham. In the text, Willia Marie tells her Aunt that the scene is from a dream where her ancestors gathered in the chapel and spoke with her. In the dream, Betsy tells Willia Marie a story about meeting a white man who tried to shame her for being the descendant of enslaved people. Betsy rebuffed the man by asking him if he was ashamed of being the descendant of slavers. The man recounted a family story involving his grandparents, slavers from South Carolina, who had recoiled at the scent of bodies emanating from a slave ship in distress that they passed on a boat journey, only for their own boat to catch fire, forcing them to inhale the scent more deeply as they struggled to breathe amid the smoke.As of 2022, Matisse's Chapel was in a private collection.
''Part I, #7: Picasso's Studio'' (1991)
Picasso's Studio depicts Willia Marie posing nude for the artist Pablo Picasso with his painting Les Demoiselles d'Avignon hanging behind her. Picasso is elderly, the age he would have been during Ringgold's early career, but much older than he would have been when painting Les Demoiselles. In the text, Willia Marie tells her Aunt that the women and African masks in the Picasso painting began to have a conversation during her visit, encouraging Willia Marie to embrace her identities as both a Black person and a woman. Willia Marie also tells her Aunt that while Picasso "has the power to deny" the African inspirations in his art, it "doesn’t matter what he says about where it comes from. We see where, every time we look in the mirror.”Picasso's Studio is in the collection of the Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts.