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Faith Ringgold, American, 1930-Present. Picasso’s Studio, 1991.
Faith Ringgold displays her common quilt character Willia as both model and subject for Picasso’s masterwork “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon.”
In this story quilt, Ringgold presents a narrative that challenges the originality of Picasso’s cubist masterpiece Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. The text at the edges of the quilt and the internal scene recounts the story of a young black woman who moved to Paris and modeled for Picasso’s painting but shortly realized that as a European man Picasso was able to use symbols of Africana to his advantage while the model was left to consider his appropriation of the black female body and its cultural heritage. While Ringgold’s narrative is partially true and partially fictional, it presents a compelling argument against the longstanding tradition in art history of Western painters exploiting other cultures.
