This novel follows Harriet through her life as a black woman 'passing' as a white woman in colonial Philadelphia. Harriet Hemings was one of the bastard children of Thomas Jefferson and his slave/lover Sally Hemings. Former President Thomas Jefferson was one of those men. The men who had such arrangements were men of wealth and power.

In 1960, Chase-Riboud completed a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University.Īfter completing her studies, Chase-Riboud moved to Paris.ĭuring the time of slavery in the U.S., many slave owners had slaves as mistresses. During this time, she traveled to Egypt, where she discovered non-European art. There, she created her first bronze sculptures and exhibited her work at the Spoleto Festival in 1957, as well as at the American Academy and the Gallery L'Obeliso the following year. In that same year, she won a John Hay Whitney fellowship to study at the American Academy in Rome for 12 months.

Chase-Riboud went on to receive a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Tyler School at Temple University in 1957. Between 19, she continued her training at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art and won an award from Seventeen for one of her prints, which was subsequently purchased by the Museum of Modern Art. She also excelled as an art student at the Philadelphia High School for Girls (now combined with Central High School). Chase-Riboud displayed an early talent for the arts and began attending the Fleisher Art Memorial School at the age of 8. The only child of Vivian May Chase, a histology technician and Charles Edward Chase, a contractor. She divides her time between Paris and Rome.

In 1996, she was knighted by the French Government and received the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 1965, she became the first American woman to visit the People's Republic of China after the revolution. She has received numerous honors for her work, including the Carl Sandburg Prize for poetry and the Women's Caucus for Art's lifetime achievement award. In addition to stimulating considerable controversy, the book earned Chase-Riboud the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize for the best novel written by an American woman and sold more than one million copies in hardcover. The novel has been described as the 'first full blown imagining' of Hemings' life as a slave and her relationship with Jefferson. Much of her work has explored themes related to slavery and exploitation of women.Ĭhase-Riboud attained international recognition with the publication of her first novel, Sally Hemings, in 1979. An American novelist, poet, sculptor and visual artist, perhaps best known for her historical fiction.

Sally Hemings by Barbara Chase-Riboud