About the Exhibition

Deborah Pettway Young (American, 1916-1997) “Roman Stripes” variation, c. 1960 Cotton twill, print, jersey knit, denim, polyester 83 x 64 in. Collection of the Tinwood Alliance Cat. Pg. 135		Jessie T. Pettway (American, b. 1929) bars and string-pieced columns, 1950's Cotton 95 x 76 in. Collection of the Tinwood Alliance Cat. Pg. 89
The quilts in the exhibition are drawn from the collection of the Tinwood Alliance, a non-profit foundation for the support of African-American vernacular art, founded by William Arnett. Arnett uncovered this unique legacy of Southern Alabama's cultural heritage in 1997. Many of the quilts had been stored under mattresses and in closets and cupboards for many years. Arnett first traveled to the area in search of Annie Mae Young, after seeing her picture and quilt in a magazine. Young's quilt pointed him to Gee's Bend, a community of about 750 residents isolated on a curving peninsula of land on the Alabama River. Gee's Bend was named after Joseph Gee, the first white man to stake a claim there in the early 1800s. The Gee family sold the plantation to Mark Pettway in 1845; most of the current residents are descendants of slaves on the former Pettway plantation and many use the Pettway name. Today, lacking ferry service, Benders, as residents call themselves, are an hour's drive from the county seat of Camden, the closest source of supplies, schools, and medical services. Geographically isolated, the women in the community have traditionally created quilts from whatever materials were available in patterns of their own imaginative design. The women of Gee's Bend, historically an agricultural community, plowed in the fields alongside men, cooked, kept house, and reared large families. Their forebears continued to work the land as tenant farmers after emancipation, and many eventually bought the farms through programs of the New Deal beginning in the 1940s. Electricity, water, and telephone followed with the 1960s and 70s. Gee's Bend became known, briefly, for its quilts during the civil rights movement in the 1960s when Francis X. Walter, an Episcopal priest, discovered the quilts. He set up the Freedom Quilting Bee, a quilt-making cooperative of the women of Gee's Bend. Their quilts began to appear in such department stores as Bloomingdales, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Sears, bringing widespread recognition. Eventually, the need to reproduce identical quilts did not work well with their individualistic style. Today, only a few of the women are continuing the quilting practice in Gee's Bend. The exhibition features 65 quilts dating from the 1930s to 2000 arranged in nine thematic sections Annie Mae Young, Work Clothes, Housetop, Loretta Pettway, My Way, Family (Connections), Patterns, Triangles and Corduroy. The Quilts of Gee's Bend, a 20-minute video by the Tinwood Alliance will be shown continuously in the exhibition and includes interviews with many quilters. Visitors are encouraged to try their hand at quiliting, and quilting demonstrations occur daily at 1-3pm and 6-8 on Wednesday and Friday evenings. Other venues for the exhibition include: The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Sept. 8 -- Nov. 10, 2002) Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City (Nov. 21, 2002 -- March 2, 2003) Mobile Museum of Art (June 14 -- Aug. 31, 2003) Milwaukee Art Museum (Sept. 27, 2003 -- Jan. 4, 2004) The Corcoran Gallery of Art (Feb. 14 -- May 17, 2004) Chrysler Museum of Art (Oct. 15, 2004 -- Jan. 2, 2005) Memphis Brooks Museum of Art (Feb. 13 -- May 8, 2005) Museum of Fine Arts Boston (June -- Aug. 2005) High Museum of Art (Fall/Winter 2005).

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