Barbara Chase-Riboud
| Barbara Chase-Riboud | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Barbara Chase June 26, 1939 Philadelphia |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Fleisher Art Memorial School, Philadelphia Museum School of Art, Temple University (BFA 1957), American Academy in Rome, Yale University School of Design and Architecture (Masters 1960) |
| Known for | Sculpture, Poetry, Novels |
| Notable work | Sally Hemmings, The Malcolm X Steles |
| Movement | Black Arts Movement |
Barbara Chase-Riboud (born 1939) is an American visual artist, bestselling novelist and award-winning poet.
Established as a sculptor, Chase-Riboud attained international recognition with the publication of her first novel, Sally Hemings (1979). The novel has been described as the "first full blown imagining" of Hemings and her life as a slave, including her rumored relationship with President Thomas Jefferson. In addition to stimulating considerable controversy, as mainline historians then continued to deny this relationship, the book earned Chase-Riboud the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for the best novel written by an American woman. It sold more than one million copies in hardcover and it was a Book-of-the-Month Club selection. It was reissued in 1994, and in paperback in 2009, together with her novel, President's Daughter (1994), about Harriet Hemings.
Chase-Riboud has received numerous honors for her literary work, including the Carl Sandburg Prize for poetry and the Women's Caucus for Art's lifetime achievement award. In 1965, she became the first American woman to visit the People's Republic of China after the revolution. In 1996, she was knighted by the French Government and received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
From September 2013 to January 2014, the Philadelphia Museum of Art presented Barbara Chase-Riboud: The Malcolm X Steles, a survey of work created between 1969-2008. This traveled to the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in 12 February - 28 April 2014. Her anthology of poetry from 1974 - 2008 is under press, as are her collected letters.
Barbara Chase was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the only child of Vivian May Chase, a histology technician, and Charles Edward Chase, a contractor. She was suspended from her middle school being accused, falsely, of plagiarism her poem "Autumn Leaves". Chase displayed an early talent for the arts and began attending the Fleisher Art Memorial School at the age of 8.
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