Walk into the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and you’ll eventually hit a wall that stops your breath. It’s twelve feet of raw, unadulterated chaos. Blood—bright, primary-color red—splatters across business suits and cocktail dresses. You’re looking at American People Series 20: Die, a masterpiece by Faith Ringgold that was finished in 1967.
It’s not just a painting. Honestly, it’s a crime scene.
Ringgold didn't paint this to be "pretty" or to match someone’s mid-century modern sofa. She painted it because the world was on fire. The summer of 1967 was the "Long Hot Summer," a time when race riots were tearing through Newark and Detroit. While most of the "fine art" world was obsessed with clean lines and abstract blobs, Ringgold was in her studio documenting the screaming, the stabbing, and the sheer terror of American streets.
The Story Behind American People Series 20 Die
So, what is actually happening in this giant diptych? Basically, you’ve got thirteen people caught in a "free-for-all."
There are ten adults and three children. Some are Black, some are white. But here’s the kicker: they’re all dressed like they’re headed to a fancy corporate mixer or a posh dinner party. The men are in white shirts and black slacks; the women are in chic orange mini-dresses. Ringgold did this on purpose. She wanted to show that racial violence isn’t just something that happens "somewhere else" or among "other people." It permeates every class, every neighborhood, even the "hooty-dooty" ones.
The background is a grey-and-black checkerboard. It looks like a sidewalk from a bird’s-eye view. This wasn't an accident. Ringgold famously noted that the sidewalk is where everyone eventually falls during a riot. It's the ultimate equalizer.
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Inspired by Picasso, but Made in Harlem
You can’t talk about American People Series 20: Die without talking about Guernica. Faith Ringgold used to take her daughters to MoMA just to stare at Picasso’s anti-war mural. She was obsessed with how he used a huge horizontal space to show a singular moment of tragedy.
But while Picasso used bulls and horses to represent the horrors of the Spanish Civil War, Ringgold used the people she saw every day. She took that European "high art" language and translated it into a Harlem dialect. She replaced Picasso's monochrome palette with the jarring, saturated colors of the 60s.
The Smallest Details Are the Most Haunting
If you look closely at the center of the mural, you’ll see something that’ll break your heart. Two children—one Black girl and one white boy—are huddled together.
They are the only ones in the entire painting who aren't covered in blood.
They’re clinging to each other in a desperate, innocent embrace while the adults around them literally tear each other apart. It’s a gut-punch of a metaphor. Ringgold was a mother and a teacher; she saw firsthand how children aren't born with this hate. They learn it. Or, in the case of this painting, they are simply the collateral damage of a world they didn't build.
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- The Gun: A white man points a pistol directly at a white woman.
- The Knife: A Black man holds an upturned blade.
- The Repetition: The figures look eerily similar, almost like the same four people are being repeated in different stages of a struggle.
Why Nobody Wanted This Painting for 50 Years
For a long time, this work was basically invisible.
When it was first shown in 1967 at the Spectrum Gallery, people were horrified. One woman reportedly stepped off the elevator, saw the painting, shrieked, and ran back into the elevator. It was too "loud." It was too "political." For decades, museums wouldn't touch it. They told Ringgold her work lacked "rhythm" or that it was too illustrative.
In reality? They just weren't ready to look in the mirror.
It took until 2016 for MoMA to finally acquire the piece. Think about that. The very museum that inspired the work waited half a century to own it. Now, it stands as one of the most visited and talked-about pieces in their collection, often placed right near Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. It’s a conversation that was fifty years in the making.
Making Sense of the Chaos Today
The reason American People Series 20: Die still feels so "now" is because the questions it asks haven't been answered. It asks who gets to be "American." It asks why we are so quick to turn on each other. It asks what kind of world we are leaving for the kids in the center of the frame.
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Ringgold called her style "Super Realism." It wasn't about painting every eyelash; it was about capturing a "truth" that was more real than a photograph. She didn't label the "good guys" or the "bad guys" in this painting. Everyone is bleeding. Everyone is terrified.
How to Engage with This Art
If you're ever in NYC, go see it. But if you're looking to understand it from home, here’s how to really "get" what Ringgold was doing:
- Look at the hands. Notice how some people are reaching out to help, while others are reaching out to hurt. The ambiguity is the point.
- Ignore the blood for a second. Look at the fashion. The 1960s "mod" aesthetic clashing with the violence makes the scene feel like a nightmare version of a Mad Men episode.
- Read the title again. "Die." It’s an imperative. It’s a command. It’s a blunt, ugly word for a blunt, ugly reality.
Faith Ringgold passed away in 2024, but she lived to see this painting become the icon it deserved to be. She proved that you don't have to follow the "rules" of the art world to change it. Sometimes, you just have to pick up a brush and tell the truth, even if it makes people want to run back into the elevator.
To truly appreciate this work, you should look up the rest of the American People Series. Before she got to "Die," she painted 19 other pieces that explored the quieter, subtler ways racism and class tension work in America. Seeing the progression from the tense, "polite" dinner parties of the early series to the total explosion of "Die" makes the final mural feel even more inevitable. It’s a masterclass in visual storytelling that refuses to let the viewer off the hook.