At the age of 16, one of Barbara Chase-Riboud’s woodcuts entered MoMA’s collection, the first in a lifetime of achievements. Sixty-eight years later, the same museum hosted an exhibition that put her work in dialogue with that of Alberto Giacometti last May.
A sculptor of modern monuments, “an accidental historian,” and an incisive poet, Chase-Riboud continues to redefine the scope and significance of living a creative life with every mark she makes. The art world's recognition of such achievements is reaching a fever pitch, and her 2022 epistolary memoir, I Always Knew, shows how she got there. Here, the artist shares the key to her creative longevity and crucial advice for young artists.
CULTURED: Barbara, I know your wood block print “Reba” entered the collection at MOMA when you were only 16 years old.
Barbara Chase-Riboud: I had entered a contest with Seventeen magazine, which I had won. The prize was an exhibition in New York. William Lieberman walked into the gallery and bought it off the wall. He didn't know who I was or how old I was or anything.
CULTURED: How did it feel when you learned that it was going to enter their collection?
Chase-Riboud: I didn't even know about it. My mother didn't bother to tell me. I thought this was normal. I had no idea until many years later that it had been bought by MoMA.
CULTURED: When did you first want to become an artist?
Chase-Riboud: I was seven years old. I walked every week past a painting at the Philadelphia Museum of Art where I went for classes. It was the red painting of a ballerina by Degas. I thought that that was the most glorious thing I'd ever seen, and I wanted to make something like that. I also went to Fleisher Art Memorial classes, adult classes in the evening, where I did sculpture. I won a first prize for a sculpture, and thought, This is terrific. If all I have to do is make a sculpture, and win a prize, I’m for it!
CULTURED: You've published several critically acclaimed books: poetry, historical novels. How have these parallel practices of writing and making visual art informed and nourished each other over the years?
Chase-Riboud: I have a saying that I write what I can't sculpt and I sculpt what I can't write. It’s like being ambidextrous; I go from one to the other for no particular reason. This has happened so many times it almost seems normal to me. My whole career has been this sort of imbalance or balance between literature and sculpture.
I can say without a doubt that I'm an accidental historian who got caught up in the American story in a way which I had never expected to do. This passion has followed me through a whole other career of art, which I was trained to do, and was expected to do. I found that it was my point in life. And yet, the literature kept interfering. It has interfered 13 times, so it can’t be an accident. I have six novels, six collections of poetry, and one memoir.
CULTURED: What aspect of your practice are you most thinking about right now?
Chase-Riboud: I’m in the mode of an extraordinary collection of exhibitions, retrospectives, and books. These things are unparalleled in my life. All of this seems to be happening at the same time, as if everything is wound up and climbing in an extraordinary way. As far as my age is concerned, this is it. This is the end of the line.
CULTURED: Does it feel overwhelming? Does it feel exciting? Does it feel late?
Chase-Riboud: All that rises must converge. I don’t know. It’s just the moment. There is a conjecture which is the idea of a memorial, the idea of monuments, and the idea of American history that has followed me from the very beginning until now.
CULTURED: In one of your recent exhibitions at MoMA, an encounter with Alberto Giacometti's work was staged. Besides Giacometti, is there an encounter with another artist that taught you something about the kind of life that you wanted to lead?
Chase-Riboud: I’ve met the whole panorama, from Dalí to Calder. Calder was a neighbor of mine in the country. I met this whole list because my brother-in-law was a collector and had them all as friends. I stumbled into situations like Egypt, Turkey, Paris, and Rome that seemed to take me on as some kind of extraordinary prize or something. I’m exotic, I think I was born that way. It doesn’t bother me that people find me exotic. Most artists are aliens. I love being an alien. I’m in the position of l'étranger.
CULTURED: What connection have you formed with the materials that make up your visual work? They’re also part of the reason your work is so singular.
Chase-Riboud: I didn't do it on purpose, that's for sure. There's no choice here, just like there’s no choice in a little girl saying, “When I grow up, I want to be an artist.” I didn’t think that way. I didn't think of being an artist as anything extraordinary. It seemed to me to be quite a normal life. All the lessons seemed quite normal.
CULTURED: Does it still feel normal to you? You've led quite an extraordinary life.
Chase-Riboud: I don’t think my life is so extraordinary. At least when I was living it, I didn’t. In retrospect, yes. Living to the nth degree is something that one does not out of ambition but out of ignorance. You do what you do because you don't know how to do anything else.
CULTURED: What advice would you give to a younger artist who's entering their practice?
Chase-Riboud: I’d tell them, first of all, before they leap into this cesspool, they should travel, they should read, they should learn how to draw, and then they should make their choice. Educate yourself before you leap, not after you leap.
CULTURED: What do you think has been the key to your longevity as an artist?
Chase-Riboud: Happiness. It makes me happy. You don’t choose that. It could’ve gone the other way. Many times, practically with every book and every sculpture, it could have gone the other way. But it didn't.
This interview is part of a series of conversations with female artists over the age of 75. To read more, see this article on the artist who's held a zany mirror to American consumerist culture for over 50 years, Pippa Garner.
