The French Collection is a series of twelve quilt paintings by American artist Faith Ringgold completed between 1991 and 1997. Divided into two parts composed of eight and four quilts each, the series utilizes Ringgold's distinct style of story quilts to tell the fictional story of a young African American woman in the 1920s, Willia Marie Simone, who leaves Harlem for Paris to live as an artist and model. The stories, illustrated in acrylic paint and written in ink surrounding the paintings, narrate Willia Marie's journey as she befriends famous artists, performers, writers, and activists (many of whom would not have lived during the era or in the region), runs a café and works as a painter, and develops a distinct Black feminist intellectual worldview based on her experiences and identity. Willia Marie's interactions with notable modernist artists and their oeuvres are an archetypical example of Ringgold's responses to the predominantly white artistic canon, wherein she often directly invoked, embraced, and challenged the central figures of modernist art.
Exhibited as a full set for the first time in 1998, five of the quilts are now located in public museums and galleries across the United States while the remaining seven are in private collections. The French Collection quilts are among Ringgold's most well-known works and have been extensively reproduced as prints, posters, and in popular media.
History
Ringgold began working on The French Collection in 1990 and finished the bulk of the series in 1991. #10: Jo Baker's Birthday; #11: Le Café des Artistes; and #12: Moroccan Holiday were completed later, in 1993, 1994, and 1997, respectively. Ringgold traveled extensively in the early 1990s throughout France for visual inspiration using funding from her employer, the University of California, San Diego, as well as from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her travels included a three-month residency at La Napoule Art Foundation in Mandelieu-la-Napoule, where she first began the paintings. Artist Denise Mumm assisted with the quilting process and Lisa Yi, then Ringgold's assistant in New York, copied the written stories onto the works.
The twelve quilts were exhibited together for the first time at Ringgold's show Dancing at the Louvre (1998-1999), originating at the New Museum in New York. The collection has only been exhibited together one time since the original showing, at Ringgold's retrospective Faith Ringgold: American People (2022), also originating at the New Museum.
Ringgold continued the narrative begun in The French Collection in a second series of quilts, The American Collection (1997), which are meant to be understood as paintings by Willia Marie's daughter Marlena and do not include full stories in text.
Descriptions and locations
Each quilt is made with acrylic paint on canvas, patterned fabric, and text written in ink on canvas. The quilts tell the narrative of Willia Marie Simone, a 16 year old African American girl who is moving from Harlem, New York, to Paris, in 1920 to paint and model. Willia Marie's Aunt Melissa gives her $500 for the journey and eventually agrees to care for her children, and they exchange letters over the course of her time in Europe. Ringgold's daughter has described the quilts and stories in The French Collection:
While five of the quilts are located in public collections and a number of the quilts are owned by noted public figures, some are owned by unknown private collections and may still be in the collection of the artist.
Part I, #1: Dancing at the Louvre (1991)
Dancing at the Louvre depicts Willia Marie and a stylish Black woman whose three daughters in colorful dresses are dancing happily in an art gallery at the Louvre. Several paintings are rendered on the wall behind the figures, including the Mona Lisa. In the written text, Willia Marie writes to her Aunt Melissa about a friend named Marcia (the pictured woman), who scolded Willia Marie for not bringing her children with her to Europe. Ringgold modeled Marcia and her children on the artist's own children in real life, whom she did not bring to Europe with her on her trips for inspiration for the series.
Dancing at the Louvre is in the collection of the Gund Gallery, Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio.
Part I, #2: Wedding on the Seine (1991)