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Quilting dates back to the beginning of time. But now in the 21st Century, what do you do with all those beautiful, amazing, one of a kind quilts? Your room is too modern to put them on your bed. We here at Milne’s At Home Antiques and Gallery can help you. Wall Art is now what all the designers are suggesting you do with quilts. It is considered “Quilt Art”.
Quilt art, sometimes known as art quilting, is an art form that uses traditional quilting techniques to create art objects. Practitioners of quilt art create it based on their experiences, imagery, and ideas rather than traditional patterns. Quilt art generally has more in common with the fine arts than it does with traditional quilting. This art is generally either wall hung or mounted as sculpture, though exceptions exist.
Although many quilts made and displayed prior to the 1970s can now be defined as art, the form was most importantly recognized as legitimate art in the 1971 Whitney exhibit, Abstract Design in American quilts. That exhibit of pieced quilts from the 19th and early 20th centuries, organized by Jonathan Holstein, presented the quilts on stark white walls with simple gallery labels. Holstein organized the exhibit so that each piece could “be seen both as an isolated object and as part of a balanced flow of objects.” This type of visual presentation marked a break from the traditional crowded hanging of quilts in county fairs and guild shows that had predominated throughout earlier displays. The exhibit was widely reviewed, including a glowing report by the New York Times art critic, Hilton Kramer.
The presentation of pieced quilts, with their emphasis on color and geometric forms, fits perfectly into the art modes of the time. The abstract expressionists, like Mark Rothkon and Barnett Newman, who used large swaths of color on canvas, had had their moment in the 1950s. They were followed in the 1960s by such hard edge abstractionists as Frank Stella. Thus the public had already been prepared for highly colored abstract art work; the pieced quilts in the Whitney exhibit fit into the current art scene. The Whitney’s pieced art exhibit toured the country and was followed by a quilt craze, which reached a culmination in the Bicentennial events of 1976. Many quilts were made for that event and a revival of interest in quilting techniques and materials started giving artists expanded work potential. In addition, the feminist movement of the late 60s and 70s produced a new interest in women who worked in the arts, as well as formerly neglected women’s work that could now be seen as art. Quilts, exhibited in galleries and museums, fit into the country’s cultural and social concerns.
Milne’s At Home Antiques have been collecting Quilts for over 40 years. We know where they came from, what year they were made as, well as some of the women who made them. These Amazing, Colorful, Geometric Storytelling Quilts date back to the 18th & 19th Century. At Milne’s you can start becoming a collector of this new rage “Quilt Art”, we have over 200 quilts to choose from. One of our services is that we can take that Beautiful One of A Kind Quilt and mount it for you, so you can put it on your wall or ceiling. Bring a part of History into your home, or give the gift of “Quilt Art” to a loved one. Below is just a small selection of amazing quilts we have to offer. We are always putting more on the web or as always stop in the shop to see the whole collection in person. Below is just a few of the hundreds of antique quilts we own.
