While Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt can be seen this fall in the Dorrance Galleries, the Spain Gallery in the Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building will feature a complementary installation of African-American quilts from the Ella King Torrey Collection. The exhibition will be on view from August 16, 2008 to February 2009.
A recent gift to the Museum, this extraordinary collection includes 13 works by leading Southern quilt makers. Among its highlights are an appliqued "word quilt" by the Mississippi artist Sarah Mary Taylor (1916-2004) and one of her "hand" quilts, a version of which was commissioned for the film The Color Purple. Two quilts are by Taylor's mother, Pearlie Posey (1894–1984), who in 1980 followed her daughter's lead and began creating rainbow-hued figurative applique quilts.
A boldly-colored quilt by Arester Earl (1892–1988) of Georgia is constructed of individually padded and pieced squares sewn together, a style unique to the artist. Several are by artists from the celebrated community of quilters in Gees Bend, Alabama.
A Philadelphia native, the late Ella King Torrey was a leading figure in the art world, having served as director of Pew Fellowships in the Arts and President of the Art Institute of San Francisco prior to her death in 2003.
Ms. Torrey assembled her quilt collection between 1981 and 1983 while conducting fieldwork on African American quilt-making with Maud Southwell Wahlman. Several of the quilts were included in one of the first exhibitions of its kind, Ten Afro-American Quilters, held at the University of Mississippi's Center for the Study of Southern Culture in 1983. -- www.philamuseum.org
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