Barbara Chase-Riboud facts for kids

Barbara Chase-Riboud (born June 26, 1939) is an American and French artist, sculptor, novelist, and poet.

She is well-known for her sculptures and poems. Chase-Riboud became very famous as an author for her novel Sally Hemings (1979). This book won the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize and became a worldwide success.

Chase-Riboud's novel about Sally Hemings started important discussions. It explored the likely relationship between Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman, and Thomas Jefferson, who later became president of the United States. At first, many historians did not agree with Chase-Riboud's story. They even convinced a TV company not to make a show based on the novel. However, after DNA analysis in 1998, most historians now accept that Jefferson and Hemings likely had a relationship.

Early Life and Education

Barbara Chase was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She was the only child of Vivian May Chase, a medical lab technician, and Charles Edward Chase, a builder. Barbara showed a talent for art very early on. She started attending the Fleisher Art Memorial School when she was eight years old.

She went to Philadelphia High School for Girls from 1948 to 1952. She graduated with top honors. She then continued her art training at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art.

In 1956, Barbara earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Tyler School at Temple University. That same year, she won a special scholarship called the John Hay Whitney fellowship. This allowed her to study at the American Academy in Rome for a year. While in Rome, she created her first bronze sculptures and showed her artwork. She also traveled to Egypt, where she learned about art from different cultures.

In 1960, Barbara completed her Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree from Yale University School of Design and Architecture. She was the first African-American woman to receive an MFA from Yale. After finishing her studies, Barbara left the United States. She moved to London, England, and then to Paris, France.

Career Highlights

Barbara Chase-Riboud is a celebrated sculptor, poet, and novelist. She has worked with many different art forms throughout her long career.

Visual Arts

At Temple University's Tyler School of Art, she learned about sculpture, painting, graphic design, and more. She also studied how the human body is put together at Temple University School of Medicine.

Chase-Riboud's modern sculptures often mix strong metals like bronze and aluminum with soft materials like silk or other fabrics. She uses a special method called "lost wax casting." First, she shapes large sheets of wax. Then, she pours hot metal into a mold made from the wax. The metal melts the wax, creating the metal part of her sculpture. Finally, she adds fabric threads, tying them into knots and cords. These often form the base for the metal parts of her sculptures, like her famous "Malcolm X Steles."

In 1955, her woodcut artwork called Reba was shown at the Carnegie Hall Gallery. The Museum of Modern Art later bought this woodcut.

Her first solo art show was in Italy in 1957. Her first museum show in Europe was at MOMA Paris in 1961.

Her first public art project was a fountain completed in 1960 for the Wheaton Plaza in Wheaton, Maryland. This fountain was made from pressed aluminum and included abstract shapes, sounds, and lights.

In the late 1960s, Chase-Riboud's sculptures started getting a lot of attention. Her works are described as "startling, ten-foot-tall sculptures that combine powerful cast-bronze abstract shapes with veils of fiber ropes made from silk and wool."

Chase-Riboud showed her work at the First World Festival of Black Arts in Dakar, Senegal, in 1966.

La Musica Red Parkway / Josephine Red (2007) at Glenstone in 2023

Chase-Riboud and Betye Saar were the first African-American women to have their art shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art. This happened after protests by artists like Faith Ringgold who wanted more recognition for Black women artists.

In 1971, Chase-Riboud was featured in a documentary called Five. This film was about African-American artists. The part about Chase-Riboud showed her art installation and her working in her studio.

In 1996, Chase-Riboud was one of the artists chosen to create artwork for the African Burial Ground National Monument in Lower Manhattan. Her large 18-foot bronze memorial, Africa Rising, was put in place in 1998. Chase-Riboud also wrote a poem with the same name.

She continues to create drawings and sculptures. Her work is collected by famous museums such as the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Newark Museum, the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. From 2013 to 2014, the Philadelphia Museum of Art held a special exhibition of her work called Barbara Chase-Riboud: The Malcolm X Steles.

Her art is also in major company collections and museums around the world, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

From September 2024 to January 2025, a huge exhibition of her work was shown across eight different museums in Paris. This was a first for any living artist, showing how important her work is.

Literary Career

Chase-Riboud has received many awards for her writing. These include the Carl Sandburg Prize for poetry. In 1965, she was the first American woman to visit the People's Republic of China after its revolution. In 1996, the French Government honored her with the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

I Always Knew A Memoir cover Barbara Chase-Riboud

Chase-Riboud became known worldwide with her first novel, Sally Hemings (1979). This novel was the first to imagine the full life of Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman. It explored her long-rumored relationship with President Thomas Jefferson. The book caused a lot of discussion. Many historians at the time did not believe the relationship was real. However, the book won Chase-Riboud the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. Sally Hemings sold over one million copies and was reissued many times.

Chase-Riboud started her writing career as a poet. Her first poetry book, Memphis & Peking (1974), was edited by the famous author Toni Morrison. Her latest poetry collection, Everytime a Knot is Undone, a God is Released: Collected and New Poems 1974–2011, was published in 2014.

She has continued to write novels that explore the history of enslaved African people. Her novel Valide: A Novel of the Harem (1986) looked at slavery in the Ottoman empire. Echo of Lions (1989) was one of the first serious novels about the historic Amistad slave ship revolt of 1839. Hottentot Venus: A Novel (2003) tells the story of Sarah Baartman, a Khoikhoi woman who was shown in public displays in 19th-century Europe.

In 1994, Chase-Riboud published The President's Daughter. This book continued the story of Sally Hemings by imagining the life of her daughter with Jefferson, Harriet Hemings. Harriet and her siblings were mostly of European ancestry. When Harriet was 21, she left Monticello and moved North. She lived as a white person, as did her brother Beverley. Another brother, Eston Hemings, and his family also later lived as white people. Only Madison Hemings, one of the four surviving children, continued to identify as African-American throughout his life.

Sally Hemings: A Novel

In 1979, Chase-Riboud's novel Sally Hemings became very popular. It was based on the life of Thomas Jefferson's enslaved woman, Sally Hemings. She was much younger than Jefferson and was his late wife's half-sister. People had long rumored that she was his partner for many years. Chase-Riboud met with editor Jacqueline Onassis in 1974 to discuss her plans for the book. Onassis encouraged her to write it.

Chase-Riboud was the first writer to create a full, fictional character of Sally Hemings. She gave Sally a rich inner life and a voice. The public accepted her portrayal and could imagine such a relationship with Jefferson. Sally Hemings became a vivid historical figure in America. The book became an international bestseller and won an important fiction award.

It was so popular that a TV company planned to make a mini-series based on it. However, some historians who wanted to protect Jefferson's image pressured the company to stop the project. No TV show was made at that time.

However, more than 20 years later, a TV mini-series called Sally Hemings: An American Scandal (2000) was produced. It showed the relationship between Hemings and Jefferson. This portrayal became widely accepted after a 1998 DNA study. The study showed a connection between a Hemings descendant and Jefferson's male family line.

While some people debated how Sally Hemings was shown, no major historian questioned that Hemings and Jefferson had a long relationship and children. The TV series showed Sally Hemings as a beautiful woman, which matched historical descriptions. It also showed African Americans with different skin tones. The enslaved Hemings family was large, and many mixed-race family members worked at Jefferson's home, Monticello.

Even though some historians continued to deny the relationship, in 2000 and 2001, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello and the National Genealogical Society both concluded that Jefferson likely fathered all of Hemings's children. This was based on the DNA evidence and other historical facts. This agreement among historians has changed how Jefferson is viewed. The Smithsonian Museum and Monticello worked together on a major exhibition in 2012. It explored Jefferson as a slaveholder and focused on six main enslaved families, stating that Jefferson was likely the father of all Sally Hemings' children. Over one million people saw this exhibit.

Chase-Riboud explored the complex connections between the Hemings and Jefferson families. Because Sally Hemings was the much younger half-sister of Jefferson's late wife, she was an aunt to his two daughters.

Her work helps us understand the history of mixed-race relationships in America before the Civil War. It also shows how these stories can help us think about diverse communities today. Many artists, poets, and writers have continued to explore the Jefferson-Hemings relationship since her book.

Chase-Riboud v. Dreamworks Lawsuit

In 1997, Chase-Riboud reached an agreement in a lawsuit against DreamWorks. She had claimed that the movie Amistad (1997) copied parts of her novel about the Amistad revolt, Echo of Lions. The details of the agreement were not made public.

Poetry

Chase-Riboud's first poetry book, From Memphis & Peking (1974), was edited by Toni Morrison and received good reviews. Her poetry book, Portrait of a Nude Woman as Cleopatra, (1987), won the Carl Sandburg Award in 1988. In 1994, Chase-Riboud published Roman Egyptien, which was poetry written in French. In 2014, she published Everytime a Knot is Undone, a God is Released: Collected and New Poems 1974–2011. She also contributed a poem to the 2019 book New Daughters of Africa.

Personal Life

In Paris, Barbara Chase met Marc Riboud, a photographer. They married in 1961. They had two sons, David Charles Riboud (born 1964) and Alexis Karol Riboud (born 1967). They traveled a lot to places like Russia, India, Greece, and North Africa.

Years later, they divorced. In 1981, Chase-Riboud married her second husband, Sergio Tosi, who was an art publisher.

Barbara Chase-Riboud is a citizen of both the United States and France.

Awards and Honors

• 1957: John Hay Whitney Fellowship
• National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship
• 1979: Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for her novel Sally Hemings.
• 1993: Honorary Doctorate of Letters from Muhlenberg College.
• 1995: James Van Dar Zee Award for Lifetime Achievement.
• 1996: Honorary Doctorate of Letters from the University of Connecticut.
• 1996: Honored by the French Government with the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.
• 1996: Commissioned to create the memorial Africa Rising for the African Burial Ground National Monument in New York.
• 2004: Nominated for the Hurston-Wright Legacy Award for Hottentot Venus.
• 2005: Hottentot Venus named "Best Fiction Book of 2004" by the Black Caucus of the American Library Association.
• 2007: Lifetime achievement award from the College Art Association Women's Caucus for Art.
• 2007: Alain Locke Award from Detroit Institute of Arts.
• 2020: "Anonymous Was A Woman" award from the Rockefeller Foundation.
• 2021: "Laureate of Prix d'Honneur" from AWARE (Archives of Women Artists, Research and Exhibitions).
• 2021: "Laureate of Grand Prix Artistique de la Fondation Simone et Cino del Duca".
• 2022: Honored by the French Government with the "Legion d'Honneur".

Selected Works

Sculptures

• Last Supper (1958)
• Bullfighter (1958)
• Malcolm X (1970)
• Why Did We Leave Zanibar (1971)
• Confession for Myself (1973)
• Cleopatra's Cape (1973)
• Africa Rising (1998)
• Mao's Organ (2008)

Novels

• Sally Hemings: A Novel (1979). ISBN: 978-0-312-24704-1
• Valide: A Novel of the Harem (1986). ISBN: 978-0-688-04334-6
• Echo of Lions (1989). ISBN: 978-0-688-06407-5
• The President's Daughter (1994). ISBN: 978-0-345-38970-1
• Hottentot Venus: A Novel (2003). ISBN: 978-0-385-50856-8
• The Great Mrs. Elias: A Novel (2022). ISBN: 978-0-063-01990-4

Poetry

• From Memphis & Peking (1974). ISBN: 978-0-394-48899-8
• Portrait of a Nude Woman as Cleopatra (1987). ISBN: 978-0-688-06403-7
• Everytime a Knot is Undone, a God is Released (2014). ISBN: 978-1-60980-594-4

Memoir

• I Always Knew: A Memoir (2022). ISBN: 9780691234274

Related Links

• The Art Blog
• Decades in the Making
• Fred B. Adelson, "Barbara Chase-Riboud brings Malcolm X sculptures home", USA Today, November 5, 2013
• Barbara Chase-Riboud papers at the Stuart A. Rose Library, Emory University
• "American expat artist living in Paris France – Barbara Chase-Riboud", YouTube video, April 27, 2010.
• "Memory Is Everything: Barbara Chase-Riboud", Barbara Chase-Riboud in conversation with Hans Ulrich Obrist, Mousse Magazine, 60
• Myth of a Colorblind France. Documentary by Alan Govenar featuring Barbara Chase-Riboud.

See Also

In Spanish: Barbara Chase-Riboud para niños