Loretta Pettway
Quilt

Quilt

© Loretta Pettway

Quilt
Quilt
ArtistAmerican, born 1942
CultureAmerican
Titles
  • Quilt
  • Log Cabin (Courthouse Steps)
  • Bricklayer (local name)
Datec. 1970
PlaceGee's Bend, Alabama, United States
MediumCotton denim
DimensionsOverall: 84 × 66in. (213.4 × 167.6cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase
Object number2002.415
Not on view

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Object Type
Description

Loretta Pettway
is the descendent of slaves who worked a plantation in Gee’s Bend, a
fifteen-mile stretch of land nestled in a hairpin turn of the Alabama River.
Economic need and geographic isolation contributed to the survival of a strong
tradition of quilt making among the women of Gee’s Bend, ranging from the 19th
century to the present day.



 



Pettway pieced her first quilt
together when she was eleven years old, and she was chiefly active as a quilter
between the late 1950s and the 1970s. Her quilts are distinguished by her
preference for bold, simple geometries of the Bricklayer pattern. Like
generations of Gee’s bend quilters, she worked whatever fabrics came to hand. “I
made all my quilts out of old shirts and dress tails and britches legs,”
Pettway recalled. “I would tear them up and make quilts. . . . I just made what
my grandmamma had made back in those days.”




Provenance Research Ongoing Exhibition History"The Quilts of Gee's Bend," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, September 8 - November 10, 2002. Brown Foundation Galleries; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY. November 21, 2002 - March 9, 2003; Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL. June 16 - August 31, 2003; Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI. September 27, 2003 - January 4, 2004; The Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. February 14 - May 17, 2004; Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH. June 27 - September 12, 2004; Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, VA. October 15, 2004 - January 2, 2005.

"Houston Collects: African American Art," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Upper Brown Pavilion, July 31-October 26, 2008.

"Statements: African American Art from the Museum's Collection," The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Millennium Gallery, January 24–September 25, 2016.

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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