I Always Knew - by Barbara Chase-Riboud (Hardcover)

About the Book

"American artist, poet, and novelist Barbara Chase-Riboud (b. 1939), has had an unusually varied and highly successful career across genres and media. As a poet, her work was edited by Toni Morrison and she is a recipient of the Carl Sandburg Prize. As a fiction writer, she was edited by Jacqueline Kennedy Onasis, and her first historical novel, Sally Hemmings (1979) was a bestseller. But Chase-Riboud trained as a visual artist, primarily as a sculptor, and her large installations made of fabric and bronze are powerful, with references to the human figure, her travels in North Africa and China, and the American Civil Rights Movement. She and Bettye Saar were the first African-American women to exhibit at the Whitney Museum of Art, and her work is in many major collections, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, and the Centre Pompidou. This book, framed as a memoir, is composed of over forty years' worth of letters Chase-Riboud wrote to her beloved mother, and which she found in her mother's house around the time of her death. The letters begin in 1957, while the artist was a student in Paris, and continue through 1991. As Chase-Riboud writes in the introduction, "This is not autobiography, nor biography, nor memoir nor fiction but a strange hybrid mixture of disparate and even contradictory narratives out of which portraits of the two of us emerge, separate yet united and indivisible.""--

Book Synopsis

The extraordinary life story of the celebrated artist and writer, as told through four decades of intimate letters to her beloved mother

Barbara Chase-Riboud has led a remarkable life. After graduating from Yale's School of Design and Architecture, she moved to Europe and spent decades traveling the world and living at the center of artistic, literary, and political circles. She became a renowned artist whose work is now in museum collections around the world. Later, she also became an award-winning poet and bestselling novelist. And along the way, she met many luminaries--from Henri Cartier-Bresson, Salvador Dalí, Alexander Calder, James Baldwin, and Mao Zedong to Toni Morrison, Pierre Cardin, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and Josephine Baker.

I Always Knew is an intimate and vivid portrait of Chase-Riboud's life as told through the letters she wrote to her mother, Vivian Mae, between 1957 and 1991. In candid detail, Chase-Riboud tells her mother about her life in Europe, her work as an artist, her romances, and her journeys around the world, from Western and Eastern Europe to the Middle East, Africa, the Soviet Union, China, and Mongolia.

By turns brilliant and naïve, passionate and tender, poignant and funny, these letters show Chase-Riboud in the process of becoming who she is and who she might become. But what emerges most of all is the powerful story of a unique and remarkable relationship between a talented, ambitious, and courageous daughter and her adored mother.

Review Quotes

"[A] remarkable story. . . . [Chase-Riboud's] warm, enthusiastic letters grant us a fascinating look at a young artist's ascent at a time of great adversity, but also great opportunity."---Lauren Moya Ford, Hyperallergic

"[Barbara Chase-Riboud's] love for and solidarity with Vivian Mae ripples through I Always Knew. She writes of her adventures as one writes to a sister, a best friend, as one might imagine Sula writing to Nel in Toni Morrison's Sula."---Soraya Nadia McDonald, Harper's Bazaar

"Cinematic, effervescent, and charming."---Nika Elder, Women's Art Journal

"A fascinating memoir."---Alexandra Grabbe, Next Avenue

"[I Always Knew has] a remarkable openness, a sort of friendly affect that is irresistible."---Carl Rollyson, New York Sun

"I Always Knew is the intimate, profound introduction to a life constantly driven by intelligence, creativity, restless at times, always thoughtful. . . . We cannot help but be amazed by the life of Chase-Riboud. . . . The book is the manifesto of [Chase-Riboud's] ability to inspire us."---Donatien Grau, The Brooklyn Rail

"A fascinating portrait of the artist's experience as a Black American woman living abroad at a time of marked racism, violence, and political tension, but also great cultural exchange and opportunity. . . . [I Always Knew] is a book about daily life. And of course, Chase-Riboud's daily life is much more exciting than most."---Lauren Moya Ford, Hyperallergic

"Remarkable. . . . In these memoirs, Chase-Riboud candidly and passionately describes her aspirations, her ambitions and creative inspiration, while also showcasing love and tenderness to her mother. Chase-Riboud is a pioneer."---Hans Ulrich Obrist, CNN Style

"Barbara Chase-Riboud has lived the kind of life that could only be portrayed in a movie. Now, the story of her amazing life and art is recounted in [this] new book."---Eugene Holley Jr., Publishers Weekly

"[In I Always Knew, ] Chase-Riboud weaves celebrity encounters, political bombshells, and artistic trends into lively, chatty tales, preserving her experiences of climactic events and her devoted relationship with her witty, often acerbic mother."-- "Booklist starred review"

"A charming epistolary record of a life of art and discovery, well and fully lived."-- "Kirkus Reviews"

About the Author

Barbara Chase-Riboud is a visual artist and sculptor, novelist, and poet. She is the author of six novels, including Sally Hemings and The Great Mrs. Elias, and three poetry collections. She is the recipient of many awards and prizes, including the French Légion d'Honneur in 2022. She lives in Paris and Rome.