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Angels Whispering in the Night (2013) was made by Faith Ringgold and her studio assistant, Grace Matthews. It employs the graphic style and narrative mode of a children’s storybook. The innocence of the whimsical doodle-like drawings belie the seriousness of the work’s subject matter. Reading ‘Bombs flying / songs dying / mothers crying / angels flying / and whispering / in the night / everything gonna be alright’, the fairytale-like poem deals with the themes of war, death, and maternal grief. The girly handwriting and pink background reinstate the importance of women within her works, readdressing the omission of women from art history.

This work came into the Collection in 2021 as a generous gift from Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell: the eminent astrophysicist and alumna of ±«ÓãÖ±²¥.