Stitching Together American History
Quilts have been made and cherished by a huge variety of people, including rich and poor, women and men, urban and rural, white artisans, and creative people of color. In this sense, quilts touch on numerous strands of the American story that you find incredibly interesting.
The book has a quilt made by an imprisoned African American lady and features celestial and biblical characters. There is another quilt with prayer lines that a mother sewn into her son's bedcover while he was serving in the Union army. You can also find a quilted Abraham Lincoln. These are just a few of the many, varied, and occasionally obscure tales of the American experience that quilts and bedcovers from the Museum of Fine Arts collection have to offer.
These quilts and bedcovers, created by Americans of African, European, Hispanic, and Native American descent, range from specific movements of political protest to family heirlooms, entailing a unique tale to tell.
Fabric of a Nation: American Quilt Stories
by Pamela Parmal - Jennifer M Swope - Lauren D Whitley - Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
A New York Magazine 2021 holiday gift guide pick
A mother stitches a few lines of prayer into a bedcover for her son serving in the Union army during the Civil War. A formerly enslaved African American woman creates a quilt populated by Biblical figures alongside celestial events. A quilted Lady Liberty, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln mark the resignation of Richard Nixon. These are just a few of the diverse and sometimes hidden stories of the American experience told by quilts and bedcovers from the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Spanning more than 400 years, the 58 works of textile art in this book express the personal narratives of their makers and owners and connect to broader stories of global trade, immigration, industry, marginalization, and territorial and cultural expansion.
Filled with photos of vibrant, historical and modern hand-stitched textile art.-Rebecca Malinsky “Wall Street Journal”
More books like this
Quilts and Color: The Pilgrim/Roy Collection
by Pamela Parmal - Jennifer Swope
Quilts and Color presents more than 60 graphically bold American quilts from the Pilgrim/Roy Collection, one of the finest and largest collections of quilts in the world. Influenced by twentieth-century art developments such as Abstraction, Op art and the Color Field movement, Paul Pilgrim and Gerald Roy were among the first to appreciate quilts as more than simply decorative bedcovers, women's fancy work or symbols of a rustic past. Reproduced brilliantly and arranged by ideas based in color theory--Vibrations, Mixtures, Gradations, Harmonies, Contrasts, Variations and Optical Illusions--each quilt in this book is celebrated as a unique work of art. The accompanying text also sheds light on the social and cultural history of the quilts and the practices and aspirations of their mostly anonymous makers, who created such works of enduring beauty and arresting visual impact. Quilts and Color accompanies an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
Kaffe Fassett: The Artist's Eye
by Dennis Nothdruft - Kaffe Fassett - Mary Schoeser - Nj Stevenson - Suzy Menkes - Sandra Rhodes - Sarah Campbell
Kaffe Fassett (b. 1937) is one of the most recognized names in contemporary craft and design with work encompassing knitting, needlepoint, quilting, textile design, mosaic, painting, and drawing. Fassett's sense of color and pattern has inspired makers around the world; his early successes include knitwear designs for fashion designers such as Bill Gibb and Missoni, and in more recent years he has collaborated with the luxury fashion house Coach. His inimitable eye can translate the most everyday of details into the basis for one of his colorful, sophisticated, maximalist designs.
This book explores Fassett's career and work in context for the first time, highlighting and widening the scope of his output over more than five decades. Drawing on original artworks, photographs, and archival material, it illuminates the work of this distinctive, influential artist and designer. Essays from design and fashion historians sit alongside striking visual material and insightful interviews with Fassett that provide additional context about this prolific artist.