The AAUW Alumnae
Recognition Award honors a past recipient of an AAUW fellowship or grant who has
attained outstanding success and national or international distinction as a result
of her AAUW award in her chosen profession or life’s work. Through this award,
AAUW recognizes the accomplishments of an alumna who empowers women and girls
and advances the goals of AAUW. The award was first given in 2013 and is
presented biennially at the AAUW National
Convention.
Faith Ringgold, internationally
renowned artist, educator, and social activist, has used her art to draw
attention to racism and gender inequality. Born in Harlem, she received her
bachelor’s and master’s degrees in fine arts from the City College of New York.
Today, Ringgold is professor emerita in the visual arts department at the
University of California, San Diego.
Ringgold was a pioneer in the
women’s arts movement of the 1960s, organizing protests against major museums
for excluding works by black and women artists. She helped found the Women
Students and Artists for Black Liberation group to ensure that African American
art exhibitions equally represented women and men.
Ringgold is best known for her
story quilts — painted narratives on fabric. Her work has been exhibited all
over the world and in the permanent collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim
Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Museum of Modern Art. She
received the 1976–77 AAUW Creative Arts Award, given in conjunction with the
National Endowment for the Arts to practicing artists with exceptional talent.
She was also featured in the PBS series Makers: Women Who Make America and in a Time magazine photo essay about
contemporary artist legends.
Ringgold has written or
illustrated 16 children’s books, including the award-winning Tar
Beach. She is the founder of the nonprofit 501(c)3, Anyone Can Fly
Foundation, Inc, which aims to bring more African American Master artists and their art traditions
into the established art canon.