Collection in Focus | The Reach of Faith Ringgold

Collection in Focus | The Reach of Faith Ringgold

The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is set to offer a concentrated exploration of one of the most significant figures in postwar American art, Faith Ringgold (1930–2024). From May 9 to September 14, 2025, The Reach of Faith Ringgold will anchor a conversation around a single, monumental work from the museum's own holdings, positioning the late artist, writer, and activist as a crucial link within the art historical canon.

This exhibition is the third installment in the Guggenheim’s Collection in Focus series, a curatorial initiative designed to provide deeper public access to the institution's world-renowned collection. Organized by Naomi Beckwith, the museum's Deputy Director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator, the show pivots entirely around Ringgold’s celebrated 1988 story quilt, Woman on a Bridge #1 of 5: Tar Beach.

The work itself is the first in a five-part series and a prime example of Ringgold’s signature medium. Merging acrylic painting on canvas with printed and pieced fabric, ink, and thread, Tar Beach defies easy categorization. It is at once a painting, a quilt, and a narrative text. The piece tells the story of a young girl who imagines herself flying over her Harlem rooftop—a space transformed from a simple "tar beach" into a launchpad for freedom and self-realization. This fusion of craft tradition, personal storytelling, and figurative painting is central to Ringgold’s practice, which consistently challenged the conventional boundaries separating fine art from applied arts.

According to the Guggenheim, the exhibition aims to situate Tar Beach in dialogue with works by modernists who came before Ringgold and artists whose practices were shaped by her influence. By doing so, the presentation will underscore her unique position as both an inheritor of modernist principles and a trailblazer who forged new paths for subsequent generations. This focused approach allows for a nuanced examination of how Ringgold engaged with and departed from established art movements, particularly in her exploration of themes central to political art, feminist art, and the Black American experience.

For collectors and art professionals, Ringgold’s market and institutional standing has solidified significantly over the past decades, culminating in major retrospectives and acquisitions. Her passing in April 2024 has only sharpened the focus on her legacy and the prescience of her work. Her pieces are held in the permanent collections of virtually every major American museum, including the Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, and of course, the Guggenheim. This institutional validation reflects a long-overdue recognition of her pioneering vision.

The Reach of Faith Ringgold offers more than just a viewing of a masterpiece; it provides a framework for understanding an artist's profound and lasting impact. By concentrating on a single, pivotal work, the Guggenheim invites a meditative and scholarly consideration of an artist who masterfully wove together personal memory, social critique, and art historical reference into powerful visual statements. The exhibition promises to be an essential destination for anyone invested in the trajectory of 20th-century American art and the ongoing reappraisal of its most vital contributors.