Try and do another one.’”. Postal Service even issued ten commemorative stamps featuring images of Gee’s Bend quilts. The farm was later sold to Mark H. Pettway, who established an even larger group of slaves to work the land, forcing them to take his name. Selvedge Magazine, 14 Milton Park. Given to friends and family or bundled for sale within the community, the scraps were then transformed from standardized remnants into vibrant and individualized works of art. These women bring a unique level of local flavor to the one visual tradition widely practiced by Americans of every social class, ethnicity, religion, and region. Quilts from Gee's Bend created a sensation when they were first exhibited in 2002. Now they got everything they need, they don’t know the value of quilts.”, Souls Grown Deep: Artists of the African American South. “I made a block once and my momma told me, ‘Just like that. Whether arranged into "Housetop" configurations, spotlighted as center medallions with multiple surrounding borders, channeled into lines and stripes of visual energy, or laid out as a "One Patch," the single-form quilts illustrated here conform to compositions traditionally favored throughout the Gee's Bend area. “Back in the time [my mom] was coming up, they didn’t have very much,” Pettway said. Hours: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tues.-Sun. Since then, quilts from Gee’s Bend have been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and others. Jake Crandall/ Advertiser. In 2006, the book Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt was launched at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; that same year, the U.S. Her quilt making style marries a flair for improvisation to traditional construction techniques that emphasize rectangles and squares. “That’s how we kept warm, by quilts.”. The fundamental geometries of Gee's Bend quilts shine in works made with single repeating patches: triangles, squares, diamonds, and hexagons. Nettie Young, “H” Variation (Quiltmaker’s Name: “Milky Way”), 1971. “These works enable us to tell a fuller story about American art,” said John Vick, the Art Museum collections project manager who organized the exhibition. At checkout you will see a donation option in support Nest’s work and partnership with the Gee’s Bend … United Kingdom +44 7723 465522. customerservice@selvedge.org But they are in a league by themselves. The some seven hundred or so inhabitants of this small, rural community are mostly descendants of slaves, and for generations they worked the fields belonging to the local Pettway plantation. Matriarch quilt maker, Loretta Pettway (born 1935) descends from generations of accomplished quilt makers in Gee’s Bend, Alabama. Curatorial project manager John Vick speaks about artist Mary Lee Bendolph's quilts (one hanging and one spread out on a bed) during a news conference for "Souls Grown Deep: Artists of the African American South.". The oldest quilts on display were made in the 1920s and 1930s, while the most recent ones were created by Bendolph and her contemporaries in the 2000s. The Gee’s Bend quilts of the early 20th century are largely geometrically intricate pieces, comprised of many pieces of cloth in repeating patches of triangles, squares, diamonds, or hexagons. “Whatever little things they had, like clothes, when they wore out, they had to patch them. The quilts of Gee's Bend are quilts created by a group of women and their ancestors who live or have lived in the isolated African-American hamlet of Gee's Bend, Alabama along the Alabama River.The quilts of Gee's Bend are among the most important African-American visual and cultural contributions to the history of art within the United States. In 2006, the publication, Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt premiered at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and that same year, the U.S. Along County Road 29, many women refer to any quilt dominated by concentric squares as a "Housetop," which reigns as the area's most favored "pattern." Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio/Art Resource (AR), New York. Artist Mary Lee Bendolph talks about her work in front of her quilt "Blocks, Strips, Strings, and Half Squares" during a press conference announcing the opening of "Souls Grown Deep: Artists of the African American South" exhibit at the Perelman Building of the Philadelphia Museum of Art on June 5. At Alison Jacques Gallery there is an opportunity to see some 13 quilts made by three generations of women from Gee’s Bend, Alabama. Below, explore some of my favorite Gee’s Bend quilts, and if you’re interested, check out a fantastic video about the quilt makers here. 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