A Conversation about Black Quilts

A Conversation about Black Quilts

May 5, 2023

Over the past five years, the High has more than quadrupled the number of quilts made by African American women in its collection, which today range from one of Jessie Telfair’s iconic Freedom quilts to fifteen masterpieces from the artists of Gee’s Bend and stunning pieces by members of Atlanta’s more than twenty-year-old quilt guild, the Brown Sugar Stitchers Quilt Guild. Since the 2018 reinstallation of the High’s collection, about half a dozen quilts have been presented in an ongoing rotation within the Folk and Self-Taught Art galleries in cross-collection displays that explore themes such as civil rights history, the continuation of folk traditions, and still life in the work of both trained and untrained twentieth-century artists.

As the museum prepared for a 2024 exhibition featuring Black quilts from its collection, it brought together quilters, curators, community-based arts leaders, and historians from a variety of disciplines to talk about how to provide greater visibility, care, and context for Black quilts. This event featured three esteemed panelists in conversation with curator Katherine Jentleson about their experiences making, documenting, and critically interpreting quilts.