Amelia and Robert H. Haley Memorial Lecture: Faith Ringgold’s Story

This landmark talk on the life and art of Faith Ringgold brings together Lisa Farrington (art historian and one of the foremost scholars of Faith Ringgold) and Samantha Cataldo (Associate Curator of Contemporary Art at the Worcester Art Museum) for a conversation that will offer unique insights into the crucial impact and continued relevance of Ringgold’s work.

Faith Ringgold: Freedom to Say What I Please is on view at the Worcester Art Museum through March 17.

About the Speakers

Lisa Farrington is an award-winning leader in the field of African American art history. She is a preeminent scholar on the art of Faith Ringgold and has published extensively, including Faith Ringgold (2004), the first major survey of the complete work of the artist, and Art on Fire: the Politics of Race and Sex in the Paintings of Faith Ringgold (1999), which focuses on racial, gender, and political iconography in Ringgold’s work. 

She is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the City University of New York; and served as Associate Dean of Fine Arts and Director of the Gallery of Art at Howard University. Farrington has won the Andy Warhol Foundation / Creative Capital Arts Writers Prize, the Spelman College / Atlanta University Endowed Chair in the Humanities, a Ford Foundation Education Fellowship, and three national awards for her Oxford University Press book on the history of African American women artists. She is winner of two Lifetime Achievement Awards from artist Faith Ringgold’s Anyone Can Fly Foundation and from Howard University’s Annual James A. Porter Colloquium on African American Art. She has lectured at museums and universities worldwide and published ten books in as many years, including a revisionist history of African American art—her second book for Oxford University Press. Farrington was also senior art historian at Parsons School of Design for 16 years and Founding Chair of the Art & Music Department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice / CUNY. Her latest book, Black Artists: in Their Own Words is part of the renowned Documents of 20^th Century Art, University of California Press series and will be released in 2025.

Samantha Cataldo organized the exhibition, Faith Ringgold: Freedom to Say What I Please, on view through March 17 at the Worcester Art Museum, in close coordination with the artist’s gallery. At the Worcester Art Museum, Cataldo stewards the presentation and interpretation of post-war and contemporary art and develops the Museum’s collection of global contemporary art. She plays a leading role in the development of new exhibitions and long-term installations, as well as directing the Museum’s Southeast Asia Artists-in-Residency. Through her work on collections, exhibitions, and programming, Cataldo helps further the Museum’s commitment to enhancing the visibility of underrepresented communities of artists. Prior to joining the Worcester Art Museum in 2022, Cataldo served as Senior Curator of Contemporary Art at the Currier Museum of Art in Manchester, New Hampshire.