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South African Love Story #2: Part I and II (diptych)

Faith Ringgold
South African Love Story #2: Part I and II (diptych), 1985-87
Intaglio on canvas, with pieced fabric border
Each panel: 160 x 193 cm

Faith Ringgold’s story quilt South African Love Story #2: Part I and II (diptych) (1985-87) is a work grounded in a South African narrative. Quoting a literary text, it tells the romantic story of a couple that has been separated and the struggle for freedom that eventually unites them. Produced during the 1980s, a highly volatile time in South Africa’s history, it highlights the intersections of race, gender and class in the country at the time and emphasizes solidarity between struggles across the Atlantic. During the 1980s Ringgold collaborated with Robert Blackburn and his famous New York printmaking workshop to create various prints which she incorporated into her story quilts. In South African Love Story #2 patches of dyed, printed and painted fabric surround the text, with the central panels bearing a pattern of entangled human forms that echoes the story’s content. This historic quilt will be presented at Goodman Gallery, Cape Town in April 2023 marking its first presentation in South Africa since its creation almost 40 years ago. Exhibition History Works of Visual Arts Department Faculty, University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Mandeville Gallery, San Diego, CA, April 6 – May 15, 1988