This quilt started William Arnett, the founder of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation, on his quest to collect and exhibit quilts made in the Gee’s Bend area. In 1997 he saw an image of Young with this quilt draped over her woodpile in order to display it to visiting quilt historian and photographer Roland L. Freeman. Arnett was so struck by the extraordinary vitality of the medallion quilt, with its glowing center of strips of corduroy surrounded by a wide border of pieced denim, that he arranged to visit Young. That visit, and the purchase of this work, led to Arnett meeting more than 150 other quilt makers from the area. In the course of many visits over a four-year period, he purchased hundreds of quilts, twenty of which are now in The Met’s collection.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Strip Medallion quilt
Artist:Annie Mae Young (American, Boykin, Alabama 1928–2012 Alberta, Alabama)
Date:1976
Medium:Top: cotton and cotton-polyester blend; back: cotton-polyester blend
Dimensions:8 ft. 8 1/2 in. × 77 in. (265.4 × 195.6 cm)
Classification:Textiles
Credit Line:Gift of Souls Grown Deep Foundation from the William S. Arnett Collection, 2014
Object Number:2014.548.57
the artist, Gee's Bend, Ala. (1976–98; in 1998 to Arnett); William S. Arnett, Atlanta (1998–2002; his gift in 2002 to Tinwood Alliance); Tinwood Alliance, Atlanta (2002–10; transfer in 2010 to Souls Grown Deep); Souls Grown Deep Foundation, Atlanta (2010–14; their gift to MMA)
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," September 8–November 10, 2002, unnumbered cat. (p. 106; lent by the Tinwood Alliance, Atlanta).
New York. Whitney Museum of American Art. "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," November 21, 2002–March 9, 2003, unnumbered cat.
Mobile, Ala. Mobile Museum of Art. "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," June 14–August 31, 2003, unnumbered cat.
Milwaukee Art Museum. "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," September 27, 2003–January 4, 2004, unnumbered cat.
Washington, D.C. Corcoran Gallery of Art. "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," February 14–May 17, 2004, unnumbered cat.
Cleveland Museum of Art. "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," June 27–September 12, 2004, unnumbered cat.
Norfolk, Va. Chrysler Museum of Art. "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," October 15, 2004–January 2, 2005, unnumbered cat.
Memphis Brooks Museum of Art. "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," February 13–May 8, 2005, unnumbered cat.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," June 1–August 21, 2005, unnumbered cat.
Auburn, Ala. The Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University. "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," September 11–December 4, 2005, unnumbered cat.
Atlanta. High Museum of Art. "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," March 25–June 18, 2006, unnumbered cat.
Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, M. H. de Young Memorial Museum. "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," July 15–November 12, 2006, unnumbered cat.
Orlando Museum of Art. "Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt," January 28–April 22, 2007, unnumbered cat. (p. 22; lent by the Tinwood Alliance, Atlanta).
Baltimore. Walters Art Museum. "Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt," June 17–August 26, 2007, unnumbered cat.
Museum of Art, Fort Lauderdale. "The Quilts of Gee's Bend," September 6, 2007–January 7, 2008, unnumbered cat.
Denver Museum of Art. "Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt," April 13–July 6, 2008, unnumbered cat.
Philadelphia Museum of Art. "Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt," August 2–October 2, 2008, unnumbered cat.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "History Refused to Die: Highlights from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation Gift," May 22–September 23, 2018, unnumbered cat. (pl. 37).
Alvia Wardlaw inThe Quilts of Gee's Bend. Ed. William Arnett and Paul Arnett. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Atlanta, 2002, p. 98, ill. (color) front cover, pp. 9 (with Annie Mae Young), 106.
Jane Livingston inGee's Bend: The Women and Their Quilts. Ed. William Arnett and Paul Arnett. Exh. cat., Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Atlanta, 2002, ill. p. 111 (color).
Cheryl Finley inMy Soul Has Grown Deep: Black Art from the American South. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2018, p. 14.
Amelia Peck inMy Soul Has Grown Deep: Black Art from the American South. Exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2018, p. 109, colorpl. 37.
Roberta Smith. "A Testament to Those Once Neglected." New York Times (May 28, 2018), p. C16, ill. p. C13 (color).
Elizabeth Pochoda. "Art Without Adjectives." Magazine Antiques 185 (July/August 2018), pp. 106–113, figs. 7, 10 (color, overall and detail).
Mario Naves. "History Refused to Die: Highlights from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation Gift." New Criterion 37 (September 2018), p. 38.
Karen Wilkin. "A Visual Equivalent of Jazz." Wall Street Journal (May 31, 2018), p. A13, ill. (color), calls it "Work-Clothes Quilt With Center Medallion of Strips".
In this interview, author and curator Amelia Peck discusses the history of quilting in Gee's Bend, Alabama, and how these works of art have historically been misunderstood.
Faith Ringgold (American, New York, 1930–2024 Englewood, New Jersey)
1985
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