Beloved children’s books highlighted in ‘Faith Ringgold: Seeing Children’ at the High 

The High Museum of Art presents a stunning collection of works by late multimedia artist and activist Faith Ringgold in Faith Ringgold: Seeing Children. Known for her paintings, sculptures, mixed media works, performances and activism, she is perhaps most remembered for her narrative story quilts. Some might not know that she was a prolific award-winning children’s book author and illustrator as well, and more than 100 drawings and paintings from more than a dozen of her beloved published works are the focus of Seeing Children at the High. 

Ringgold, who passed away last year at the age of 93, explored themes of family, race, class and gender in her works. A lifelong educator, she used art to tell stories about serious topics to children through bright, vibrant colors and empowering story lines. She believed that children could confront complex topics of racism through a combination of fantasy and realism and offered a straightforward but still hopeful view of social issues.

On view at the High are pages from her writings that focus on Civil Rights figures in If a Bus Could Talk: The Story of Rosa Parks (1999) and the history of immigration in America in We Came to America (2016). She also evokes joyful, childlike wonder in Tar Beach (1991), which follows Cassie, a young Black child living in Harlem in the 1930s, as she imagines that she can fly to anywhere she dreams of from her apartment rooftop. 

This exhibition is the latest in a series of special exhibitions at the High Museum of Art that celebrate children’s and picture book authors. I was pleased to find playful elements that pique the curiosity of children and adults alike — such as tactile tufted benches and oversized flowers, old-school rotary phones that play audio of children reading featured books and an immersive replica of Cassie’s Harlem rooftop with Ringgold reading aloud in a video projected on the night sky overhead. 

Andrew Westover, the High Museum of Art’s Eleanor McDonald Storza deputy director for learning and civic rngagement, said that while most exhibitions feature her story quilts, he believes it is important to shine a light on Ringgold’s children’s book works as well. And the High Museum of Art is the perfect place to do so. 

“I think for folks who know her in that vein, this can be really revelatory to see that the ideas that she wrestled and grappled with and presented — she also thought deeply about how anyone can engage those. In this exhibition, she’s not hiding any part of herself — she’s still engaging really complex things — but she was an educator. She taught for almost 20 years in the New York City school system, and that I think gave her a particular ability to understand what children developmentally can hold and understand,” said Westover. In this collection, Ringgold’s works on paper convey these complex histories through methods that are palatable to children and that he finds “incredible and particularly relevant.” 

Faith Ringgold: Seeing Children is on view at the High Museum of Art through October 12. The next Exhibition Tour will take place on August 9 from 11 a.m. to noon.

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Isadora Pennington is senior editor of art + design and dance. An experienced writer and photographer with a deep love for the arts, Isadora founded the Sketchbook newsletter with Rough Draft Atlanta in 2022. She is also president of the Avondale Arts Alliance and director of the Avondale Arts Center.