Under the Blood Red Sky #9
Date2007
MediumOffset lithograph on Somerset paper
DimensionsSheet: 29 3/4 × 22 inches (75.6 × 55.9 cm)
Matted: 40 × 32 inches (101.6 × 81.3 cm)
MarkingsWatermark on the front top right and left corners: "Somerset"
Credit LineMuseum purchase in honor of Courtney McNeil with Telfair Museum of Art acquisitions endowment funds.
Object number2021.7.8
Copyright© 2024 Anyone Can Fly Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
The images and text contained on this page are owned by Telfair Museums or used by the Museum with permission from the owners. Unauthorized reproduction, transmission or display of these materials is prohibited with the exception of items deemed “fair use” as defined by U.S. and international copyright laws.Label TextThis print of two figures journeying to a white house under a “blood red sky” is part of a larger body of work known as the Coming to Jones Road series—a group of prints, quilts, children’s books, and paintings chronicling the escape of 28 enslaved people to a sanctuary on Jones Road in New Jersey in the late 18th century. The artist created this vivid group of works in response to her relocation from Harlem, New York to Englewood, New Jersey where she felt unwelcome as a Black woman. By exploring and depicting the area’s history as a hub of the Underground Railroad, Ringgold endeavored to forge a meaningful connection to her new home and couple “the beauty of the place and the harsh realities of its racist history.”
The texts surrounding the image, a device Ringgold famously also uses in her painted story quilts, are pieces of dialogue spoken by an unknown narrator, inspired by the artist’s ancestors. She explained: “I am also trying, which is the hardest part of all, to speak in the voice of my grandmothers and fathers who made it possible for me to walk free and tell their story.”
Text written for 'Contemporary Spotlight: New Acquisitions from the Brandywine Workshop' on view February 4 - May 1, 2022.
