Barbara Chase-Riboud
Encyclopedia
Barbara Chase-Riboud is an American
novelist, poet
, sculptor and visual artist, perhaps best known for her historical fiction
. Much of her work has explored themes related to slavery
and exploitation of women.
Chase-Riboud attained international recognition with the publication of her first novel, Sally Hemings, in 1979. The novel has been described as the "first full blown imagining" of Hemings
' life as a slave and her relationship with Jefferson. In addition to stimulating considerable controversy, the book earned Chase-Riboud the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for the best novel written by an American woman and sold more than one million copies in hardcover. She has received numerous honors for her 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
. She divides her time between Paris
and Rome
.
, the only child of Vivian May Chase, a histology
technician and Charles Edward Chase, a contractor. Chase-Riboud displayed an early talent for the arts and began attending the Fleisher Art Memorial School at the age of 8. She also excelled as an art student at the Philadelphia High School for Girls
(now combined with Central High School
). Between 1947 and 1954, she continued her training at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art
and won an award from Seventeen
for one of her prints, which was subsequently purchased by the Museum of Modern Art
. Chase-Riboud went on to receive a Bachelor of Fine Arts
from the Tyler School at Temple University
in 1957.
In that same year, she won a John Hay Whitney
fellowship to study at the American Academy in Rome
for 12 months. There, she created her first bronze
sculptures and exhibited her work at the Spoleto
Festival in 1957, as well as at the American Academy and the Gallery L'Obeliso the following year. During this time, she traveled to Egypt
, where she discovered non-European art. In 1960, Chase-Riboud completed a Master of Fine Arts
from Yale University
.
After completing her studies, Chase-Riboud moved to Paris.
, whom she married in 1961. She took Chase-Riboud as a surname. The couple had two sons and traveled extensively together on photo assignments in Russia
, India
, Greece
and North Africa
.
In 1981, Chase-Riboud married her second husband, art-expert Sergio Tosi.
(1966), and the L'Oeil Ecoute Festival in Avignon
(1969). According to the art critic Samella Lewis
, Chase-Riboud's sculptures are remarkable for their "traditional lost-wax technique
and include braided-, knotted-, and wrapped fiber areas that recall weaving and the fabric arts". Nancy Heller describes her work as "startling, ten-foot-tall sculptures that combine powerful cast-bronze abstract shapes with veils of fiber ropes made from silk and wool". Over time, her sculptures began to reflect African symbols as well as contemporary political themes, such as her Malcolm X
series (1969–1970).
, earned the scorn of most Jefferson scholars who, at the time, denied that such a liaison took place. Chase-Riboud, as well as the historians Winthrop Jordan
and Fawn M. Brodie
, maintained that Jefferson fathered six children with Hemings, an American slave of mixed racial heritage. Among the facts they relied on was that Hemings conceived only when Jefferson was at Monticello, during years when he was away on extensive travel for months at a time. Hemings was nearly 30 years younger than Jefferson and was the half-sister of his wife, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson
by her father John Wayles
. Scholars such as Sidney P. Moss dismissed the assertions as the "Jefferson miscegenation
legend," contending that the Jefferson-Hemings affair was devoid of factual basis. Chase-Riboud's book was popular at the time and became a bestseller. She had fully imagined the interior life of Sally Hemings, and many people accepted her portrayal of a relationship with Jefferson.
Public and academic opinion were influenced in 1997 by Annette Gordon-Reed
's analysis of the historiography of the Jefferson-Hemings controversy, showing how mainline historians had overlooked significant evidence. In 1998, a DNA
study reported in the scientific journal Nature
showed a match between the Jefferson male line and a descendant of Eston Hemings, one of Sally's sons. It showed there was no connection to the Carr line, long proposed by Jefferson descendants as the father(s) of Hemings' children. (The DNA study also showed that Thomas Woodson was not a descendant of the Jefferson male line, although that family had a strong oral tradition of descent from Jefferson.)
Based on further reviews, in 2000 and 2001 the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which runs Monticello
, and the National Genealogical Society
announced their conclusions that Jefferson had fathered Hemings' children. Most historians accept this consensus, which has been reflected in academic writing about Jefferson and his times since then, as well as recognition given to Gordon-Reed for dramatically changing Jeffersonian scholarship; in 2010 she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for her studies in colonial history.
In 1991, Chase-Riboud won a landmark copyright infringement
trial against Granville Burgess, the author of a play about Hemings entitled Dusky Sally. Chase-Riboud asserted that Burgess plagiarized her ideas by re-creating similar scenes and passages detailed in her book. Judge Robert F. Kelly concluded that while
(1986) examined slavery in the Ottoman empire
. Her Echo of Lions (1989) was one of the first serious novels about the Amistad
slave-ship revolt.
In 1997, Chase-Riboud sued the production studio Dreamworks
for $10 million on charges of copyright infringement. The author claimed that the screenplay
for Steven Spielberg
's film Amistad
plagiarized
her novel. While Chase-Riboud eventually withdrew her charges, Dreamworks countersued by demonstrating that Chase-Riboud had plagiarized from
William Owens
's 1954 novel Slave Mutiny, reissued in the 1990s under the title Black Mutiny. The suit resulted in an out-of-court settlement, the terms of which were undisclosed.
In 1994, Chase-Riboud published The President's Daughter, a historical novel about the imagined life of Harriet Hemings
. Now accepted as the natural daughter of Sally Hemings and President Thomas Jefferson, she was known to enter white society in the North after leaving Monticello in 1822. (She was the only female slave whom Jefferson allowed to go free; she walked away at age 21, with the fare for her trip given by Jefferson through his overseer.) According to her brother Madison
, who corresponded with her for years, Harriet married in Washington, DC and had a family. Seven-eighths white by ancestry, she would have been considered white under the law in Virginia, but she was born a slave according to the laws of Virginia.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
novelist, poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
, sculptor and visual artist, perhaps best known for her historical fiction
Historical fiction
Historical fiction tells a story that is set in the past. That setting is usually real and drawn from history, and often contains actual historical persons, but the principal characters tend to be fictional...
. Much of her work has explored themes related to slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
and exploitation of women.
Chase-Riboud attained international recognition with the publication of her first novel, Sally Hemings, in 1979. The novel has been described as the "first full blown imagining" of Hemings
Sally Hemings
Sarah "Sally" Hemings was a mixed-race slave owned by President Thomas Jefferson through inheritance from his wife. She was the half-sister of Jefferson's wife, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson by their father John Wayles...
' life as a slave and her relationship with Jefferson. In addition to stimulating considerable controversy, the book earned Chase-Riboud the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for the best novel written by an American woman and sold more than one million copies in hardcover. She has received numerous honors for her work, including the Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg
Carl Sandburg was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and another for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat."-Biography:Sandburg was born in Galesburg,...
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
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
after the revolution. In 1996, she was knighted by the French Government and received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
Ordre des Arts et des Lettres
The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...
. She divides her time between Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
.
Early life and education
Chase-Riboud was born in Philadelphia, PennsylvaniaPennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, the only child of Vivian May Chase, a histology
Histology
Histology is the study of the microscopic anatomy of cells and tissues of plants and animals. It is performed by examining cells and tissues commonly by sectioning and staining; followed by examination under a light microscope or electron microscope...
technician and Charles Edward Chase, a contractor. Chase-Riboud displayed an early talent for the arts and began attending the Fleisher Art Memorial School at the age of 8. She also excelled as an art student at the Philadelphia High School for Girls
Philadelphia High School for Girls
The Philadelphia High School for Girls, also known as Girls' High, is a public university-preparatory magnet high school for girls in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. As its name suggests, the school's enrollment is all female....
(now combined with Central High School
Central High School
-In the United States:Alabama* Central High School , in Phenix City, Alabama* Central High School Arizona* Central High School Arkansas...
). Between 1947 and 1954, she continued her training at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art
University of the Arts (Philadelphia)
The University of the Arts is one of the United States' oldest universities dedicated to the arts. Its campus makes up part of the Avenue of the Arts in Center City, Philadelphia...
and won an award from Seventeen
Seventeen (magazine)
Seventeen is an American magazine for teenagers. It was first published in September 1944 by Walter Annenberg's Triangle Publications. News Corporation bought Triangle in 1988, and sold Seventeen to K-III Communications in 1991. Primedia sold the magazine to Hearst in 2003. It is still in the...
for one of her prints, which was subsequently purchased by the Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art
The Museum of Modern Art is an art museum in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, on 53rd Street, between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It has been important in developing and collecting modernist art, and is often identified as the most influential museum of modern art in the world...
. Chase-Riboud went on to receive a Bachelor of Fine Arts
Bachelor of Fine Arts
In the United States and Canada, the Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, usually abbreviated BFA, is the standard undergraduate degree for students seeking a professional education in the visual or performing arts. In some countries such a degree is called a Bachelor of Creative Arts or BCA...
from the Tyler School at Temple University
Temple University
Temple University is a comprehensive public research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Originally founded in 1884 by Dr. Russell Conwell, Temple University is among the nation's largest providers of professional education and prepares the largest body of professional...
in 1957.
In that same year, she won a John Hay Whitney
John Hay Whitney
John Hay Whitney , colloquially known as "Jock" Whitney, was U.S. Ambassador to the United Kingdom, publisher of the New York Herald Tribune, and a member of the Whitney family.-Family:...
fellowship to study at the American Academy in Rome
American Academy in Rome
The American Academy in Rome is a research and arts institution located on the Gianicolo in Rome.- History :In 1893, a group of American architects, painters and sculptors met regularly while planning the fine arts section of the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition...
for 12 months. There, she created her first bronze
Bronze
Bronze is a metal alloy consisting primarily of copper, usually with tin as the main additive. It is hard and brittle, and it was particularly significant in antiquity, so much so that the Bronze Age was named after the metal...
sculptures and exhibited her work at the Spoleto
Spoleto
Spoleto is an ancient city in the Italian province of Perugia in east central Umbria on a foothill of the Apennines. It is S. of Trevi, N. of Terni, SE of Perugia; SE of Florence; and N of Rome.-History:...
Festival in 1957, as well as at the American Academy and the Gallery L'Obeliso the following year. During this time, she traveled to Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, where she discovered non-European art. In 1960, Chase-Riboud completed a Master of Fine Arts
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
from Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
.
After completing her studies, Chase-Riboud moved to Paris.
Marriage and family
In Paris, Chase met the French photo journalist Marc RiboudMarc Riboud
Marc Riboud is a French photographer, best known for his extensive reports on the East: The Three Banners of China, Face of North Vietnam, Visions of China, and In China.-Early life and education:...
, whom she married in 1961. She took Chase-Riboud as a surname. The couple had two sons and traveled extensively together on photo assignments in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
and North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
.
In 1981, Chase-Riboud married her second husband, art-expert Sergio Tosi.
Career
Chase-Riboud began to garner broad attention from her artistic work in the latter half of the 1960s, with exhibitions in the New York Architectural League Show (1965), the Festival of Negro Art in DakarDakar
Dakar is the capital city and largest city of Senegal. It is located on the Cap-Vert Peninsula on the Atlantic coast and is the westernmost city on the African mainland...
(1966), and the L'Oeil Ecoute Festival in Avignon
Avignon
Avignon is a French commune in southeastern France in the départment of the Vaucluse bordered by the left bank of the Rhône river. Of the 94,787 inhabitants of the city on 1 January 2010, 12 000 live in the ancient town centre surrounded by its medieval ramparts.Often referred to as the...
(1969). According to the art critic Samella Lewis
Samella Lewis
Samella Sanders Lewis is an African American artist , author, and former educator. Widely exhibited and collected as an artist herself, she is nevertheless perhaps even better known as a historian, critic, and collector of art, especially African-American art...
, Chase-Riboud's sculptures are remarkable for their "traditional lost-wax technique
Lost wax casting
Lost-wax casting sometimes called by the French name of cire perdue is the process by which a metal sculpture is cast from an artist's sculpture. Intricate works can be achieved by this method, primarily depending on the carver's skills...
and include braided-, knotted-, and wrapped fiber areas that recall weaving and the fabric arts". Nancy Heller describes her work as "startling, ten-foot-tall sculptures that combine powerful cast-bronze abstract shapes with veils of fiber ropes made from silk and wool". Over time, her sculptures began to reflect African symbols as well as contemporary political themes, such as her Malcolm X
Malcolm X
Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...
series (1969–1970).
Sally Hemings controversy
While Chase-Riboud first established her reputation as a sculptor, she gained widespread attention and critical acclaim for her writing with the publication of her first novel Sally Hemings (1979). The book, a fictional account of Hemings' sexual and romantic relationship with her master Thomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
, earned the scorn of most Jefferson scholars who, at the time, denied that such a liaison took place. Chase-Riboud, as well as the historians Winthrop Jordan
Winthrop Jordan
Winthrop Donaldson Jordan was a professor of history and renowned writer on the history of slavery and the origins of racism in the United States....
and Fawn M. Brodie
Fawn M. Brodie
Fawn McKay Brodie was a biographer and professor of history at UCLA, best known for Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History, a work of psychobiography, and No Man Knows My History, an early and still influential non-hagiographic biography of Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of the Latter Day Saint...
, maintained that Jefferson fathered six children with Hemings, an American slave of mixed racial heritage. Among the facts they relied on was that Hemings conceived only when Jefferson was at Monticello, during years when he was away on extensive travel for months at a time. Hemings was nearly 30 years younger than Jefferson and was the half-sister of his wife, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson
Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson
Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson, born Martha Wayles was the wife of Thomas Jefferson, who was the third President of the United States. It was her second marriage, as her first husband had died young...
by her father John Wayles
John Wayles
John Wayles was a planter, slave trader and lawyer in the Virginia Colony. He is historically best known as the father-in-law of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States....
. Scholars such as Sidney P. Moss dismissed the assertions as the "Jefferson miscegenation
Miscegenation
Miscegenation is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, and procreation....
legend," contending that the Jefferson-Hemings affair was devoid of factual basis. Chase-Riboud's book was popular at the time and became a bestseller. She had fully imagined the interior life of Sally Hemings, and many people accepted her portrayal of a relationship with Jefferson.
Public and academic opinion were influenced in 1997 by Annette Gordon-Reed
Annette Gordon-Reed
Annette Gordon-Reed is an American historian and law professor noted for changing scholarship on Thomas Jefferson. Gordon-Reed was educated at Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School. She is Professor of Law and History at Harvard, and the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Radcliffe...
's analysis of the historiography of the Jefferson-Hemings controversy, showing how mainline historians had overlooked significant evidence. In 1998, a DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
study reported in the scientific journal Nature
Nature (journal)
Nature, first published on 4 November 1869, is ranked the world's most cited interdisciplinary scientific journal by the Science Edition of the 2010 Journal Citation Reports...
showed a match between the Jefferson male line and a descendant of Eston Hemings, one of Sally's sons. It showed there was no connection to the Carr line, long proposed by Jefferson descendants as the father(s) of Hemings' children. (The DNA study also showed that Thomas Woodson was not a descendant of the Jefferson male line, although that family had a strong oral tradition of descent from Jefferson.)
Based on further reviews, in 2000 and 2001 the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which runs Monticello
Monticello
Monticello is a National Historic Landmark just outside Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was the estate of Thomas Jefferson, the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence, third President of the United States, and founder of the University of Virginia; it is...
, and the National Genealogical Society
National Genealogical Society
The National Genealogical Society is a genealogical interest group founded in 1903 in Washington, D.C.. Its headquarters are in Arlington, Virginia....
announced their conclusions that Jefferson had fathered Hemings' children. Most historians accept this consensus, which has been reflected in academic writing about Jefferson and his times since then, as well as recognition given to Gordon-Reed for dramatically changing Jeffersonian scholarship; in 2010 she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for her studies in colonial history.
In 1991, Chase-Riboud won a landmark copyright infringement
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...
trial against Granville Burgess, the author of a play about Hemings entitled Dusky Sally. Chase-Riboud asserted that Burgess plagiarized her ideas by re-creating similar scenes and passages detailed in her book. Judge Robert F. Kelly concluded that while
"laws were not enacted to inhibit creativity . . . it is one thing to inhibit creativity and another to use the idea-versus-expression distinction as something akin to an absolute defense -- to maintain that the protection of copyright law is negated by any small amount of tinkering with another writer's idea that results in a different expression."The resulting decision constituted a significant victory for artists and writers, reinforcing protection for creative ideas even when expressed in a slightly different form.
Additional novels
Chase-Riboud continued her literary exploration into slavery with her second and third novels. Valide: A Novel of the HaremHarem
Harem refers to the sphere of women in what is usually a polygynous household and their enclosed quarters which are forbidden to men...
(1986) examined slavery in the Ottoman empire
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman EmpireIt was usually referred to as the "Ottoman Empire", the "Turkish Empire", the "Ottoman Caliphate" or more commonly "Turkey" by its contemporaries...
. Her Echo of Lions (1989) was one of the first serious novels about the Amistad
Amistad
"Amistad" is a Spanish noun meaning "friendship". It may refer to:Ships* Amistad/Amitie, an 18th century schooner that transported Acadians from France to Louisiana....
slave-ship revolt.
In 1997, Chase-Riboud sued the production studio Dreamworks
DreamWorks
DreamWorks Pictures, also known as DreamWorks, LLC, DreamWorks SKG, DreamWorks II Distribution Co., LLC, DreamWorks Studios or DW Studios, LLC, is an American film studio which develops, produces, and distributes films, video games and television programming...
for $10 million on charges of copyright infringement. The author claimed that the screenplay
Screenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
for Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
's film Amistad
Amistad (1997 film)
Amistad is a 1997 historical drama film directed by Steven Spielberg based on the true story of a mutiny in 1839 by newly captured African slaves that took place aboard the ship La Amistad off the coast of Cuba, the subsequent voyage to the Northeastern United States and the legal battle that...
plagiarized
Plagiarism
Plagiarism is defined in dictionaries as the "wrongful appropriation," "close imitation," or "purloining and publication" of another author's "language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions," and the representation of them as one's own original work, but the notion remains problematic with nebulous...
her novel. While Chase-Riboud eventually withdrew her charges, Dreamworks countersued by demonstrating that Chase-Riboud had plagiarized from
William Owens
William A. Owens (author)
William A. Owens, , was an American author, folklorist and educator.-Biography:Owens was born in Pin Hook, Lamar County, Texas. He was born into rural poverty, his father died when he was only a few days old and was educated at a one room school...
's 1954 novel Slave Mutiny, reissued in the 1990s under the title Black Mutiny. The suit resulted in an out-of-court settlement, the terms of which were undisclosed.
In 1994, Chase-Riboud published The President's Daughter, a historical novel about the imagined life of Harriet Hemings
Harriet Hemings
Harriet Hemings was born into slavery at Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States, in the first year of his Presidency. Most historians believe her father is Jefferson, who is believed by many historians to have had a relationship with his mixed-race slave...
. Now accepted as the natural daughter of Sally Hemings and President Thomas Jefferson, she was known to enter white society in the North after leaving Monticello in 1822. (She was the only female slave whom Jefferson allowed to go free; she walked away at age 21, with the fare for her trip given by Jefferson through his overseer.) According to her brother Madison
Madison Hemings
Madison Hemings, born James Madison Hemings , was born into slavery as the son of the mixed-race slave Sally Hemings; he was freed after the death of his master Thomas Jefferson. Based on historical evidence, most historians believe that Jefferson, United States president, was his father...
, who corresponded with her for years, Harriet married in Washington, DC and had a family. Seven-eighths white by ancestry, she would have been considered white under the law in Virginia, but she was born a slave according to the laws of Virginia.
Legacy and honors
- 1979, Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for the best novel written by an American woman, for Sally Hemings.
- 1988, Carl SandburgCarl SandburgCarl Sandburg was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and another for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat."-Biography:Sandburg was born in Galesburg,...
Prize for poetry - Women's Caucus for Art's lifetime achievement award.
- 1996, knighted by the French Government and awarded the Ordre des Arts et des LettresOrdre des Arts et des LettresThe Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is an Order of France, established on 2 May 1957 by the Minister of Culture, and confirmed as part of the Ordre national du Mérite by President Charles de Gaulle in 1963...
.
Sculptures
- Confession for Myself (1973)
- Malcolm X (1970)
- Cleopatra's Cape (1973)
- Africa Rising (1998)
Novels
- Sally Hemings: A Novel (1979) ISBN 978-0312247041
- Valide: A Novel of the Harem (1986) ISBN 978-0688043346
- Echo of Lions (1989) ISBN 978-0688064075
- The President's Daughter (1994) ISBN 978-0345389701
- Hottentot Venus: A Novel (2004) ISBN 978-0385508568
Poetry
- From Memphis & Peking (1974) ISBN 978-0394488998
- Portrait of a Nude Woman as Cleopatra (1987) ISBN 978-0688064037
Further reading
- Women Artists: An Illustrated History. Nancy Heller, 1987. (Cross River Press)
- ART: African American. Samella Lewis, 1990. (Hancraft Press)
- History of Art. H.W. Janson, 1995. (Harry N. Abrams, Inc.)
- Creating Their Own Image: The History of African-American Women Artists. Lisa E. Farrington, 2004. (Oxford University Press)
- Barbara Chase-Riboud: Sculptor. Peter Selz & A. Janson, 1999 (Harry N. Abrams, Inc.) ISBN 978-0810941076
- Notable Black American Women. Jessie Carnie Smith, 1991 (Gale Cengage) ISBN 978-0810347496