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FAITH RINGGOLD (1930 - )
Double Dutch on the Golden Gate Bridge
.
Acrylic on canvas and painted, dyed and pieced fabric, 1988. 1740x1734 mm; 68
1
/
2
x68
1
/
4
inches.
From the 1988
Woman On A Bridge Series
.
Provenance: gift from the artist; private collection, NewYork.
Exhibited:
Faith Ringgold:A 25Year Survey
, travelling exhibition,April 1, 1990 - February 14, 1993,
including the Fine Arts Museum of Long Island, Hempstead, NY; the High Museum, Atlanta, GA,
the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY, the University of Michigan Museum of Art,Ann Arbor,
MI, and several other museums;
Made in California: Art, Image and Identity
, Los Angeles County
Museum of Art, Los Angeles, October 22, 2000 - February 25, 2001.
Illustrated: Flomenhaft, Eleanor and Lowery Stokes Sims andThalia Gouma-Peterson.
Faith Ringgold:
A 25Year Survey
, fig. 9, p. 26.
Double Dutch on the Golden Gate Bridge
is a stunning work by Faith Ringgold, and the second quilt
in her important 1988
Woman on a Bridge
series. Each of the five quilts in the series depicts women
floating above the famous bridges of San Francisco and NewYork - the Golden Gate Bridge, the
Bay Bridge, the GeorgeWashington Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge.The first in this series, Part I,
is her most famous story quilt,
Tar Beach
, in the collection of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.
In
Tar Beach
, the George Washington Bridge serves as the background for her celebrated famous
children’s story of Cassie Louise Lightfoot.
Double Dutch on the Golden Gate Bridge
is a joyous and fantastic image of young girls playing together
in this popular jumping rope game.They float elevated above the iconic bridge with the facades of
brownstones of the city of San Francisco. Each quilt in the series is a powerful visual expression of
uplifting women, with bright images of dancing, playing, music and being free. About the
Woman
on a Bridge
series, Ringgold has said “my women are actually flying; they are just free, totally.They
take their liberation by confronting this huge masculine icon—the bridge...” These empowering
images dispel the notions that contemporary art cannot speak to an audience in popular terms.
Faith Ringgold also created a powerful and positive feminist art form.
Double Dutch on the Golden Gate Bridge
is an excellent example of Faith Ringgold’s unique art form,
the artist’s ingenious incorporation of painting, narrative and quilt-making. It was exhibited
nationally, traveling to many museums in her first major retrospective.Yet this is only the second of
her story quilts to come to auction - her 1989
Maya’s Quilt of Life
, part of the Art Collection of the
Maya Angelou, was sold at Swann Galleries on September 15, 2015.
[150,000/250,000]