Unidentified (American)
Description
Improvisational quilts, or those with free-form patterns, are an old and ongoing tradition in African-American quilting. They speak of a practical need for warmth but, in the early and mid-twentieth century, they also provided a rare splash of color in crude and drab dwellings. Moreover, such quilts reveal "home-making" as a defiant, political act by people whose lives beyond the home were marked by oppression. The identity of a quilt's maker's has often been lost. The material and aesthetic compositions depart radically from European-American quilt patterns and matched color palettes; these artists improvise with available, worn, and patched-together materials to create great beauty from meager means.
Cotton Denim
Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Corrine Riley and museum purchase through the Barbara Coffey Quilt Endowment and the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment
Record Contributed By
Smithsonian American Art MuseumRecord Harvested From
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