Ever since she was a child, the multifaceted American artist Faith Ringgold—painter, sculptor, performer—has been surrounded by creativity. Born in 1930 at Harlem Hospital, at the epicenter of the Harlem Renaissance, her neighborhood was quickly becoming a bastion for the arts and crafts. As a young woman Ringgold visited Paris and was taken with the quilts in the Louvre. When she returned to America, she began to experiment with quilting, infusing the patchwork pieces with political comment and titling these new works the “French Collection.” Ringgold’s quilted narratives are figurative, striking, and filled with personal history. Last year, a large-scale retrospective celebrated her work at the New Museum. That same show now comes to France. —Elena Clavarino