American artist Faith Ringgold (1930-2024) is widely known and celebrated for her paintings and multimedia art, including narrative quilts. However, her award-winning accomplishments as a children’s book creator are often less well known. This summer, the High Museum of Art will present “Faith Ringgold: Seeing Children” (June 27-Oct. 12, 2025), the most comprehensive exhibition to date of Ringgold’s original paintings and drawings made for her children’s books, including several artworks that have never previously been exhibited. The exhibition will be the latest in the High’s popular series celebrating children’s book art and authors.
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“At the High, we’ve distinguished ourselves as champions of children’s book art, which we know inspires creativity, fosters learning and engenders empathy among our youngest visitors,” said Rand Suffolk, the High’s director. “Faith Ringgold’s books continue to be read in homes and classrooms across the United States, and their illustrations are remarkable artistic achievements. For many years we’ve had the pleasure of presenting her quilts in our collection, but with this exhibition, we are uplifting this equally important work and offering a new window into Ringgold’s life and artistry.”
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The exhibition will feature more than 100 works from a dozen of Ringgold’s books, including original paintings from “If a Bus Could Talk: The Story of Rosa Parks” (1999), “Dinner at Aunt Connie’s House” (1993) and “Tar Beach” (1991), in which Cassie, a Black child in 1930s Harlem, imagines a future where she can go anywhere that she dreams of from her apartment’s rooftop. Also on view will be complete artwork from the fable “The Invisible Princess” (1999) and “We Came to America” (2016), which examines the history of immigration in America. Together, the artworks in the exhibition illuminate critical aspects of Ringgold’s practice and convey how Ringgold, a lifelong educator, presents children as creative, purposeful art makers.
The exhibition’s title, “Seeing Children,” signals three themes that weave throughout Ringgold’s books and will be explored in the exhibition: an adult’s capacity to see children, children’s ability to see themselves and their world, and the possibility of children imagining a world beyond what adults can see. Across three sections — American Histories, Stories We Tell and American People — the exhibition will consider the role of children, particularly Black children, in American society and how children, like those in Ringgold’s books, can cultivate more equitable, hopeful possibilities for their future.
“Faith Ringgold started her career as a teacher and believed that all children are artists and should seriously consume art. Often a child will first encounter visual art on the pages of picture books, and they can help children feel valued and empowered,” said Andrew Westover, exhibition curator and the High’s Eleanor McDonald Storza deputy director of learning and civic engagement. “Through this exhibition, we will underscore the importance of those discoveries while at the same time giving due recognition to a lesser-known facet of Ringgold’s art. We’re creating an incredibly rich experience that we can’t wait to share with Atlanta.”
In conjunction with the exhibition, the Alliance Theatre at the Woodruff Arts Center, of which the High is also an arts partner, will present “Rhythm & Thread” (June-August 2025), a theatrical show for young audiences inspired by Faith Ringgold’s quilts that will celebrate family, imagination and the beauty of storytelling through the art of quilting. Created by Andrea Washington, the show will feature the artistry of Marquetta Johnson and an original jazz score by Eugene H. Russell IV. Part of the Alliance’s Bernhardt Theatre for the Very Young series, this production is specially designed for audiences under 5 years old and their caregivers.
“Faith Ringgold: Seeing Children” will be presented in the Special Exhibition Galleries on the Second Level of the High’s Stent Family Wing.
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