backstory50: Firsts
In January of 2022 I wrote to you about Faith Ringgold’s mural-size painting entitled For the Women’s House (1971), painted for the women then incarcerated on Rikers Island. The work was the final piece created for American People, a series of paintings—her first, actually—created between 1963 and 1971.
In early 2010, former Museum director Thom Collins and I introduced the series in an exhibition entitled American People, Black Light: Faith Ringgold’s Paintings of the 1960s. What I didn’t mention in my earlier backstory is that, during the run of the show, the Museum purchased American People #1: Between Friends, which was the first painting created in the series. This was a very significant purchase for both the Neuberger and Faith because it launched other major acquisitions of works from American People by institutions including the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. A milestone in the history of the Museum’s collection-building, you can see American People #1: Between Friends in the South Gallery as part of the 1974—2024 project in the The Making of a Museum: 50 Years exhibition.
Faith passed earlier this year. She is greatly missed by so many… especially those of us who had the privilege to work with her on getting her early works out there and seen for the first time.
Tracy Fitzpatrick
Director, Neuberger Museum of Art
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