Philadelphia Museum of Art: Barbara Chase-Riboud

September 29, 2013 It is Barbara Chase Riboud's first major exhibition in more than a decade and it brings together more than 40 of her works-drawings and her famous series of Malcolm X Steles. Chase-Riboud says she started the steles in the 1960s as a memorial to the slain Civil Rights leader. "Steles have a tradition that goes back thousands and thousands of years," she says, "and they are done to commemorate a historical moment… it was the perfect medium for memorializing Malcolm."

Her sculptures, inspired by Africa and the Orient, mix bronze with natural fibers like wool and silk. The exhibit also includes her Le Lit drawings, done in the 1960s and her ongoing series of monument drawings, which Chase-Riboud says "are not drawling for sculpture, I don't do drawings for sculpture…. and they started because I started a series of imaginary monuments for people who should have monuments but who don't."

For Chase Riboud, this is a homecoming. She was raised in Philadelphia, went to Girl's High and Tyler School of Art before moving to Paris in 1960. As a child, she took art classes at the Museum. "My dream was to have an exhibition at the museum, " Chase-Riboud says, "and have a huge banner across the front of the museum. And here I am."

Barbara Chase-Riboud: The Malcom X Steles runs through January 20th.

To learn more about Chase- Riboud's work or buy tickets, you can go to www.TheArtsInPhilly.org.