Angels Whispering In the Night

Angels Whispering In the Night

This lithograph, printed in collaboration between Ringgold and her longtime artist assistant Grace Matthews, relies on the legend of African people escaping enslavement by flying over the Atlantic Ocean --a persistent example of folklore passed down through generations since the transatlantic slave trade. The motif of flying people appears across all media in Ringgold’s expansive body of art and writing. Through the traditional tales of the power of flight, she imagines a new form of mobility and freedom for peoples of the African diaspora in the present. Whimsical angels in human and animal form joyously soar through the starry sky, free of their earthly burdens. Ringgold’s work commonly incorporates both image and text to illustrate a narrative. Poetic lines, “Angels whispering in the night/ Everything gone be alright,” underscore the work’s optimistic message about Black liberation.

Faith Ringgold and Grace Matthews

2005

Lithograph

David C. Driskell Center Permanent Collection,
Gift from the Jean and Robert E. Steele Collection