Patterns in Abstraction: Black Quilts from the High’s Collection
June 28, 2024 – January 5, 2025
Maker Once Known, Untitled (Housetop Quilt with Multiple Borders), ca. 1940s, cotton, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, purchase through funds provided by patrons of Collectors Evening 2017, 2017.183.
Over the past six years, the High has more than quintupled its holdings of quilts made by Black women. This collection-based exhibition will be the first to bring a number of these recent acquisitions together to answer a larger question: “How can quilts made by African American women change how we view the history of abstraction?”
Patterns in Abstraction will include about a dozen works by well-known Gee’s Bend quilters such as Mary Lee Bendolph, Louisiana Bendolph, and Lucy T. Pettway, along with works by Atlanta-based quilter Marquetta Johnson and early twentieth-century examples by artists once known. The quilts on view are mostly variations on Birds in the Air and Housetop themes, two centuries-old quilt patterns that are geometric distillations of natural phenomenon and humanmade environments, while others have deeper meanings as memorials to family members.
Presented as both objects made for use and with the artistic intent to represent people, places, and things abstractly, these quilts offer a window into how the production of nonacademic artists can transform our understanding of artistic innovation in American art. A corresponding publication through LINK, the museum’s platform for online engagement, will offer multimedia and interactive content related to the High’s expanded and growing collection of Black quilts.
This exhibition is organized by the High Museum of Art, Atlanta.
Leadership Exhibition Support is provided by the John and Rosemary Brown Family Foundation.
This exhibition is made possible through support from the Terra Foundation for American Art.
Premier Exhibition Series Sponsor
Premier Exhibition Series Supporters
Mr. Joseph H. Boland, Jr.
Ambassador Exhibition Series Supporters
Loomis Charitable Foundation
Mrs. Harriet H. Warren
Contributing Exhibition Series Supporters
Farideh and Al Azadi
Margot and Danny McCaul
Wade A. Rakes II and Nicholas Miller
Generous support is also provided by
Alfred and Adele Davis Exhibition Endowment Fund, Anne Cox Chambers Exhibition Fund, Barbara Stewart Exhibition Fund, Dorothy Smith Hopkins Exhibition Endowment Fund, Eleanor McDonald Storza Exhibition Endowment Fund, The Fay and Barrett Howell Exhibition Fund, Forward Arts Foundation Exhibition Endowment Fund, Helen S. Lanier Endowment Fund, John H. and Wilhelmina D. Harland Exhibition Endowment Fund, Katherine Murphy Riley Special Exhibition Endowment Fund, Margaretta Taylor Exhibition Fund, RJR Nabisco Exhibition Endowment Fund.