Mary Lee Bendolph | |
---|---|
Born | 1935 (age 88–89) Boykin, Alabama, U.S. |
Nationality | American |
Known for | Quilting |
Notable work | Strings (2003–04), Past and Gone (2005) |
Movement | Gee's Bend Collective |
Mary Lee Bendolph (born 1935) is an American quilt maker of the Gee's Bend Collective from Gee's Bend (Boykin), Alabama. Her work has been influential on subsequent quilters and artists and her quilts have been exhibited in museums and galleries around the country. Bendolph uses fabric from used clothing for quilting in appreciation of the "love and spirit" with old cloth. [1] Bendolph has spent her life in Gee's Bend and has had work featured in the Philadelphia Museum of Art as well as the Minneapolis Institute of Art in Minnesota. [2]
In 1999 the Los Angeles Times featured Bendolph in the Pulitzer Prize-winning article "Crossing Over", about the effort to reestablish ferry service across the Alabama River. [3] [4]
Bendolph grew up in Gee's Bend, Alabama. She was raised in the quilting tradition, first taught by her mother, Aolar Mosely, at the age of 12, [5] just two years before she began having children. [6] She gave birth to her first child at age 14, which prevented her from going to school after the sixth grade. She married Rubin Bendolph in 1955 and they had eight children. In 1965, Bendolph participated in a march led by Martin Luther King, Jr. in Camden, Alabama. [6] After retiring in 1992, Bendolph has devoted more time to quilt making. [1]
During the Civil Rights Movement, the quilts from Gee's Bend gained national recognition when the women took part in the Freedom Quilting Bee. Quilts were sold across the United States and were used to bring back money to the community. The tradition of quilt making by enslaved females stretches back to the 18th century. [7] [8]
The quilts of Gee's Bend combine the styles of traditional African American quilts with a simple geometric style that has been compared to Amish quilts and modern artists such as Henri Matisse and Paul Klee. [9] The Gee's Bend quilters began to attract critical attention in the late 1990s, leading to a major exhibition at the Whitney Museum of Modern Art, and numerous subsequent exhibitions and publications.
Like her fellow Gee's Bend members, Bendolph elevated common textiles (such as denim and corduroy) into vibrant and dynamic compositions. Attention from the formal art world has contributed to Bendolph's self-perception as an artist, in turn leading to a conscious attempt to make new work, such as her series of intaglio prints, which she made in collaboration with her daughter-in-law, Louisiana, in 2005. [9] [10]
In 2006 her quilt "Housetop" variation appeared on a US Postal service stamp as part of a series commemorating Gee's bend quilters. [11]
Bendolph is one of the Gee's Bend quilters featured in the 2011 episode "Gee's Bend: The Most Famous Quilts in America", which was part five of a nine-part series titled Why Quilts Matter: History, Art & Politics. [12]
She is a recipient of the 2015 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts. [13]
In 2020, the National Gallery of Art acquired one of Bendolph's quilts, along with work by eight other quilters from Gee's Bend. [14]
Lonnie Bradley Holley, sometimes known as the Sand Man, is an American artist, art educator, and musician. He is best known for his assemblages and immersive environments made of found materials. In 1981, after he brought a few of his sandstone carvings to then-Birmingham Museum of Art director Richard Murray, the latter helped to promote his work. In addition to solo exhibitions at the Birmingham Museum of Art and the Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art at the College of Charleston, Holley has exhibited in group exhibitions with other Black artists from the American South at the Michael C. Carlos Museum and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Toledo Museum of Art, Pérez Art Museum Miami, NSU Museum of Art Fort Lauderdale, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, de Young Museum in San Francisco, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, England, and the Royal Academy of Arts in London, among other places.
Boykin, also known as Gee's Bend, is an African American majority community and census-designated place in a large bend of the Alabama River in Wilcox County, Alabama. As of the 2020 census, its population was 208. The Boykin Post Office was established in the community in 1949 and remains active, servicing the 36723 ZIP code.
The quilts of Gee's Bend are quilts created by a group of women and their ancestors who live or have lived in the isolated African-American hamlet of Gee's Bend, Alabama along the Alabama River.
Louisiana Bendolph is an American visual artist and quilt maker. Bendolph is associated with The Quilts of Gee's Bend and her work has been considered more conceptual because of her use of vibrant color.
The Freedom Quilting Bee was a quilting cooperative based in Wilcox County, Alabama that operated from 1966 until 2012. Originally begun by African American women to generate income, some of the Bee's quilts were displayed in the Smithsonian Institution.
Blues is a 2007 print by Gee's Bend quilter Loretta Pettway Bennett located on the Eskenazi Health campus, near downtown Indianapolis, Indiana, and is part of the Eskenazi Health Art Collection.
Forever (For Old Lady Sally) is a 2006 print by Gee's Bend quilter Loretta Pettway Bennett located on the Eskenazi Health campus, near downtown Indianapolis, Indiana, and is part of the Eskenazi Health Art Collection.
Sew Low is a 2011–2012 quilt by Gee's Bend quilter Loretta Pettway Bennett. It is located on the Eskenazi Health campus, near downtown Indianapolis, Indiana, and is part of the Eskenazi Health Art Collection.
Vegetation is a 2009 quilt by Gee's Bend quilter Loretta Pettway Bennett. It is located on the Eskenazi Health campus, near downtown Indianapolis, Indiana, and is part of the Eskenazi Health Art Collection.
Lucy Marie (Young) Mingo is an American quilt maker and member of the Gee's Bend Collective from Gee's Bend (Boykin), Alabama. She was an early member of the Freedom Quilting Bee, which was an alternative economic organization created in 1966 to raise the socio-economic status of African-American communities in Alabama. She was also among the group of citizens who accompanied Martin Luther King Jr. on his 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
Loretta Pettway is an American artist and quilt maker of the Gee's Bend Collective from Boykin, Alabama. Her quilts are known for their bold and improvisational style.
Paulson Fontaine Press is a printmaking studio, gallery, and publisher of contemporary fine art prints in Berkeley, California. Many of their publications are etchings. More than half of their published editions have been produced with minority or female artists. In a 2011 interview, Pam Paulson stated: "We plan projects with emerging, mid-career, and blue-chip artists. We keep a balance."
Loretta Pettway Bennett is an American artist. She is associated with the Freedom Quilting Bee, where her mother, Qunnie Pettway, worked, and with the Gee's Bend quiltmakers. She is a prolific artist and culture-bearer, dedicated to propagating her community's traditions for future generations.
Sally Mae Pettway Mixon is an American artist. She is associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective, alongside her mother, Candis Pettway, and her sisters Qunnie Pettway and Edwina Pettway.
Delia Bennet (1892–1976) was an American artist. She is associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective, and is said to be "the matriarch of perhaps the largest family of quilt producers in Gee's Bend. Her work is included in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Sue Willie Seltzer (1922–2010) was an American artist. She is associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the National Gallery of Art, and is included in the collection of the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Nettie Pettway Young (1916–2010) was an American artist. She is associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective and was an assistant manager of the Freedom Quilting Bee. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Frist Art Museum, and is included in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Nasher Museum of Art.
Lucy T. Pettway (1921–2004) was an American artist. She is associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective. Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the Frist Art Museum, and is included in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Annie Bell Pettway (1930–2003) was an American artist. She is associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective, along with her daughter Belinda Pettway.
Lucy P. Pettway (1930–2003) was an American quilter. She is associated with the Gee's Bend quilting collective. Pettway's quilt titled Housetop - Nine-Block Half-Log Cabin Variation, is the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art.