The Sunflower Quilting Bee at Arles by Faith Ringgold

Sunflower Quilting Bee at Arles, by artist Felix St. Fort, after Faith Ringgold’s painting of the same name in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is located in the Brewerytown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This mural is part of a two mural tribute with an adjacent mural on the east side of 29th street, Hearing Our Voice: Inspired by the art of Faith Ringgold, by Delia King. These murals celebrate the works of Faith Ringgold, a Black artist born in New York and celebrated worldwide for her paintings. In 1963 Ringgold began a body of paintings called the American People series, which portrays the civil rights movement from a female perspective. In the 1970s she created African-style masks, painted political posters, lectured frequently at feminist art conferences, and actively sought the racial integration of the New York art world. She originated a demonstration against the Whitney Museum of American Art and helped win admission for black artists to the exhibit schedule at the Museum of Modern Art. In 1970 she cofounded, with one of her daughters, the advocacy group Women Students and Artists for Black Art Liberation.

Among Ringgold’s most renowned works, her “story quilts” were inspired by the Tibetan tankas (paintings framed in cloth) that she viewed on a visit to museums in Amsterdam. She painted these quilts with narrative images and original stories set in the context of African American history. Her mother frequently collaborated with her on these. Her artwork is exhibited in major museums in the USA, Europe, South America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

In this quilt are painted recognizable figures from black history and beyond with the like of Sojourner Truth, Ida Wells, Fannie Lou Hamer, Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks, and painter Vincent van Gogh known for his sunflower paintings.