CLASSIC RUG LAUNCHES NEW GEE'S BEND QUILT COLLECTION RUGS AT ARCH DIGEST DESIGN SHOW
The Classic Rug Collection returned to the Architectural Digest Design Show to launch its third Gee's Bend Quilt Collection rugs. Shown, "Crazy Quilt" by Loretta Pettway. |
NEW YORK -- Classic Rug Collection has introduced its third collection of Gee's Bend Quilt Collection rugs based on quilts by the world-famous women from Gee's Bend, Alabama. The rugs debuted at the Architectural Digest Design Show, which ran from March 16-19 at Pier 94 in New York City.
"I've done many rugs based on the Gee's Bend quilts, and have been working with artists and museums on rug projects for some time. It's a nice little niche for me," explains Barbara Barran, principal of New York-based Classic Rug Collection. "My Gee's Bend Quilt Collection rugs have sold very well at museum stores across the country," she said, noting that in 2014, when the Metropolitan Museum of Art was given a collection of 20 Gee's Bend Quilts, a new wave of publicity about the artists and their quilts spurred sales of the rugs nationwide.
Barbara Barran founder of Classic Rug Collection poses in front of a rug from the original Gee's Bend Quilt Collection based on a quilt called Bars, Strips and String by Mary Lee Bendolph, at the Architectural Digest Design Show.
The new collection features rugs in three weaves: hand-woven cotton flat weaves in five patterns and three sizes; hand-tufted New Zealand wool and bamboo silk rugs in three sizes, including a runner; and hand-knotted New Zealand wool and bamboo rugs in one size. All of the rugs are hand made in India using the colors and patterns of the quilts on which they are based.
Bars & Blocks is a cotton flatweave based on a design by Loretta Pettway, who was honored by the National Endowment for the Arts for her contributions to art in America.
The rugs are produced under exclusive license with the individual Gee's Bend quilters, all of whom copyright their own designs. Each quilter receives a royalty for every one of her rugs that is sold.
The new Gee's Bend Quilt Collection rugs will be available for delivery in May 2017.
Classic Rug Collection also has a limited number of hand-hooked Gee's Bend Quilt rugs from the previous collection, which are specially priced and available for immediate delivery.
RUGS CELEBRATING ART
In 2002, a traveling museum exhibition entitled, 'The Quilts of Gee's Bend', renewed interest in this unique African-American folk art. The exhibit contained quilts made from the 1920's to the 1990's by the Gee's Bend women's collective in rural Alabama.
Blocks, Strips and String by Mary Lee Bendolph is the catalog cover quilt from "The Architecture of the Quilt" exhibit, which traveled to seven U.S. cities from 2006 to 2008. The 6' x 6' rug is hand-tufted in India of New Zealand wool.
Organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston with the Tinwood Alliance, Atlanta, 'The Quilts of Gee's Bend' exhibit of 60 quilts ran for three years on a coast-to-coast, twelve-venue tour, premiering at the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston in the fall of 2002 and ending at the de Young Museum in San Francisco in November 2006.
Michael Kimmelman of the
New York Times reviewed the show on its arrival at New York's Whitney Museum of American Art in Nov. 2002, declaring Gee's Bend quilts "some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced." (
Read full story).
In August 2006, a series of 10 U.S. Postage Stamps were dedicated to the Quilters, each stamp featuring an image of a Gee's Bend Quilt. From 2007 to 2008, ten large murals representing each of the quilts from the U.S. Postage Stamp Collection were painted for placement along a special route through the Gee's Bend community. The murals create a tourist trail celebrating the quilts and history of this unique town, which is officially named Boykin, Alabama.
The Bars and Stringpieced Columns quilt by Jessie T. Pettway is recreated in this mural along a tourist trail in Gee's Bend, Alabama, in addition to inspiring a U.S. Postage stamp and a rug in Classic Rug's original Gee's Bend Quilt Collection.
Although said to represent just a small part of the rich body of African American quilts, the works of the Gee's Bend artists are in a league of their own according critics and scholars. This is attributed to the quiltmakers' geographical isolation and cultural continuity - with three and four generations passing down the techniques and designs that in their simple geometry are surprisingly contemporary.
A SAMPLING OF RUGS AT THE AD SHOW
BJ by Classic Rug is based on a new quilt by Loretta Bennett, an accomplished quilt maker whose work is widely known. Hand-loomed in India, the 4x4 cotton flatweave is machine washable.
Housetop, a design by Gee's Bend quiltmaker Nancy Pettway, is part of a new collection of hand-loomed cotton flatweave rugs introduced by Classic Rug Collection at the 2017 AD Design Show.
Ghost Pockets, a hand-tufted rug based on a quilt by Mary Lee Bendolph, is part of the third series of Gee's Bend Quilt Collection rugs by Classic Rug.