People's Flag Show

Label

This poster was originally intended to promote the People’s Flag Show, an exhibition responding to the arrest of a gallerist who displayed controversial art depicting the American flag. This anti-war exhibition featured over 150 artists, each of whom uniquely interpreted the most visible, celebrated, and contested symbol of the United States. During the show’s final days, three artists—Ringgold, John Hendricks, and Jean Toche—were arrested for their participation in this protest against political repression. Using text to create the signature stars and stripes, Ringgold challenges all oppressed people to ask themselves, “What does the flag mean to you?”

From the 2025-26 exhibition Revolution Reconsidered: History, Myth, and Propaganda, curated by Michael W. Hartman (Jonathan Little Cohen Curator of American Art), Haely Chang (Jane and Raphael Bernstein Associate Curator of East Asian Art), Elizabeth Rice Mattison (Andrew W. Mellon Curator of Academic Programming and Curator of European Art), Ashley B. Offill (Curator of Collections), and Evonne Fuselier (Hood Museum Board of Advisors Mutual Learning Fellow)

Course History

FREN 7, French Graphic Novels, Annabelle Cone, Spring 2013

ENVS 80, Writing Our Way Home: The Writing That Sustains Us, Terry Tempest Williams, Spring 2013

ENGL 74.05, Word-Image Theory, Michael Chaney, Fall 2019

AAAS 7.05, Imagining Black Freedom in America since the Civil War, Julie Rabig, Spring 2020

Gallery Talk: The Embodiment of Language, Winter 2020

AAAS 88.19, Contemporary African-American Artists, Michael Chaney, Summer 2021

Geography 21.01/International Studies 18.01, Global Health and Society, Anne Sosin, Spring 2025

Exhibition History

Revolution Reconsidered: History, Myth, and Propaganda, Harteveldt Family Gallery and Owen Robertson Cheatham Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, October 18, 2025 - August 8, 2026.

The Embodiment of Language, First Floor Corridor, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, January 18-May 24, 2020.

Word and Image in Contemporary Art, Churchill P. Lathrop Gallery, Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire, March 26-August 4, 2013.

Provenance

ACA Galleries, New York, New York; sold to present collection, 2012.

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Subjects