Louisiana Bendolph, Loretta Pettway Bennett, and Qunnie Pettway

Quilts and Etchings

November 26 - December 23, 2021

Opening Reception: “First Thursday,” December 2, 6-8pm

Greg Kucera Gallery is pleased to announce its fifth exhibition of quilts and related prints by women from Gee’s Bend, Alabama. We will be featuring quilts and etchings by three artists in particular, Loretta Pettway Bennett, Qunnie Pettway, and Louisiana Bendolph. The African American quilters coming from rural hamlets such as Gee’s Bend rely on recognizable traditions of patterning but create their own unique riffs as well.  Described by the New York Times as "some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced," the quilts are known for their improvisational and inventive quality. 

These African-American quilts relate to the ongoing tradition of American patchwork quilts in ways similar to how American jazz and rural music forms relate to European classical music. The notes are the same but the rules are altered or loosened. A comparison to music is apt because the quilt makers often refer to church music as a major source of their inspiration, “quilting and singing, singing and quilting.”

In 1966, the Freedom Quilting Bee was formed in nearby Rehoboth to allow the women a chance to collectively produce and sell their quilts. A brief contract with Bloomingdale’s allowed for a foundation of commercial success but expectations of “consistency” in their products led to disillusionment among the quilters. A 1972 contract with Sears, for corduroy pillow covers, lasted 20 years and provided for long-term improvement in their lives but not in the development of their art, save for introducing corduroy to their quilting.

The artists’ first museum exhibition, The Quilts of Gee’s Bend, traveled from 2002 to 2006 to Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Whitney Museum, New York; Mobile Museum of Art; Milwaukee Art Museum; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Cleveland Museum of Art; Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk; Memphis Brooks Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; High Museum of Art, Atlanta; and de Young Museum, San Francisco.

The etchings derive from their quilts through a softground process printed in rich saturated colors by the Paulsen Press in Berkeley, CA. For these etchings Louisiana Bendolph and other Gee’s Bend artists created small scale quilts in the print making studio, rending fabrics and sewing together the parts to create the right scale and complexity. As Louisiana prefers to use new material and not found fabric, this was highly successful for her. She is not shy about describing how she is part of the “new generation” of Gee’s Bend quilters and will sometimes sketch out or make a pattern to follow. Often she uses diagonals and triangles to make her images.

Work in exhibition

Louisiana Bendolph

Loretta Pettway Bennett

Qunnie Pettway