Interview with Barbara Chase-Riboud

Barbara Chase-Riboud was born in 1939 in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania, USA). She lives and works in Paris, Rome and Milan.
A sculptor, poet and novelist, Barbara Chase-Riboud began her artistic training at the age of seven, at the Philadelphia Museum and the Fleisher Art Memorial. She was just sixteen when the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York acquired one of her first works. She studied at Temple University and Yale, where she was the first African-American woman to gain a Master’s degree from Yale School of Architecture.
She created her first bronze sculptures, and held her first solo gallery shows, in Rome from 1957 to 1959, when she also visited Paris, Egypt, Greece and Turkey, expanding her artistic horizons beyond the Western tradition. She settled in Paris in 1961 and married French photographer Marc Riboud. Her artworks have since been widely exhibited at institutions in the US, France, Japan, Australia, Germany and more.
Barbara Chase-Riboud is also well known for her literary work. She published her first collection of poetry, From Memphis & Peking, to widespread critical acclaim in 1974. Her first novel, Sally Hemings, appeared in 1979. She has published some ten novels and collections of poetry, and has received numerous awards for her fiction, including the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize.