A Quilt From Gees Bend

There is a current exhibition at the Met called "History Refused to Die."  It is an exhibition of thirty paintings, sculptures, drawings and quilts by self-taught contemporary African American artists to celebrate the 2014 gift to the Metropolitan Museum of Art of works of art from the "Souls Grown Deep Foundation." The artists represented by this donation all hail from the American South.  I will be doing two posts on items from this exhibition.  This is a quilt from Gee's Bend, Alabama, by Annie Mae Young who lived from 1928-2012, and who was one of the quilters who have become famous.  They lived in the isolated African-American hamlet of Gee's Bend, along the Alabama River.  The Quilts of Gee's Bend are considered to be unique, and one of the most important African-American visual and cultural contributions to the history of art within the United States. These women were not trained as artists, they just had an astounding natural artistic ability to create amazing works of art!  I first saw these astounding quilts at an exhibition of 70 of them at the Whitney Museum, back in 2002.