Center Medallion, Annie May Young, 1965.

A group of African-American women in the small rural community of Gee’s Bend, Alabama started the “Freedom Quilting Bee” cooperative in the 1960s to raise revenue for their town during the Civil Rights era. “Discovered” by an art collector in the 80s, the women’s quilts have since been exhibited in museums worldwide and likened to modern artists of the time who were likewise using geometric, optical patterning and primary color palettes. However, the women humbly insist that they are just making quilts out of refuse scraps for utilitarian purposes and never thought of their quilts as “art.” This has often lent the art world rhetoric surrounding the quilters of Gee’s Bend easily to that of “outsider” status and subsequent exotification.

The strength of the “The Quilts of Gee’s Bend” retrospective at the de Young Museum lies in the curator’s unwillingness to make futile comparisons to modern art. Rather than using art historical information to validate these women as innovators, the exhibition gives credit where credit is due by focusing contextually written material on the women’s skillful and imaginative techniques. Photographic and video documentation also offer an appropriate examination of the political and economic conditions that informed their work.

The signature piece of the show hanging at the entrance is “Center Medallion” (pictured above) made by Annie May Young in 1965. The quilt is made from pieces of faded jeans and earth-toned corduroy -- prominent colors and materials of 1960s fashion. “Blocks and Stripes” by Helen McCloud (1965) evokes a similar aesthetic that is “retro” to our eyes now with the scrapping together of hippy floral materials and optically psychedelic textiles. The asymmetrical piecing together of the scraps is achieved through an improvisational technique rather than traditional patterns which, the curator points out, allows each woman to have a distinctive voice in their quilts.

To a regular art-goer’s eye, the quilts have an undeniable resemblance to Frank Stella’s patterning or Bridget Riley’s color schematics and these similarities are often stressed in other museum shows of the quilters in which the curators argue for an inherent “artistic genious” shared by the artists and the quilters (the comparison further creating a divide between the two.) The de Young exhibition, however, leaves space for a more interesting and relevant examination of how styles and patterns evolve in society and are passed on to even the smallest, most geographically isolated towns such as Gee’s Bend.

An alternative to the “artistic genious” hypothesis is that these women took visual cues from the textiles of their clothing and images seen in the media; one photograph in the exhibition shows a small home covered in newspaper in lieu of wallpaper. Textile design is often informed by the art of its time and vice-versa so it is not surprising that the quilters might work in similar patterns and colors that were dominant at the time in both art and design.

A highlight of the show is the occasional quote by the quilt-maker beneath the title of the piece that sheds light on the work. Mary Lee Bendolph’s statement helps to debunk the notion that the quilters were completely out of touch with mainstream art and design. Discussing the materials she used from leisure suits handed-down by a family member in the mid-90s she says, “The pants was all bellbottom. We ain’t that out of style down here…so I just made quilts out of them.

All of this is not to say that the quilters process is any less artful than say, Stella or Riley. In fact, the exhibition points out that sourcing for quilt material, or “piecing”, is a conscious process akin to selecting a color palette for a painting. A 1975 quilt uses a red, white and blue “Vote” pattern as its predominant material while a 1965 quilt by Mary Pettway employs an army textile with “AWOL” written on it (likely taken from a jacket making an anti-war statement popular at the time.) Although the humble women take little credit for the impact that their quilts have on a viewer, some have strong political undercurrents and are acute reflections of the time.

The exhibition is somewhat chronological and leaves the newest quilts for the end. These more recent quilts, while skillfully crafted, lack the sense of place and imbedded history of the earlier quilts. As the quilters have become more well-known, people have begun donating scrap materials from afar. Pieces of worn jeans that conveyed the hard labor of their previous owner are now substituted by unseasonal holiday fabrics and unfashionable florals, Perhaps it is unfair to prefer the old quilts, to insist upon the original concept and not allow for the artists’ growth. But perhaps twenty years from now the more recent quilts will look “retro” to my eyes. I might feel nostalgic for unseasonal holiday fabrics and unfashionable florals and the quilts will convey an even more recent history.

“The Quilts of Gee’s Bend” is at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. The show has been extended until December 31st.