Seldom does one museum show revolutionize a collecting field, but that’s precisely what happened

African-American quilt, 1910-25, wool and cotton.

with American folk quilts. Over the past four years, “The Quilts of Gee’s Bend,” a critically acclaimed exhibition of exuberant African-American textile art was seen by 600,000 people before concluding its national tour at San Francisco’s de Young Museum. Although it closed November 26, the Gee’s Bend phenomenon continues with “Gee’s Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt,” organized by Alvia J. Wardlaw, curator of modern and contemporary art at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and currently at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (as “The Architecture of Gee’s Bend Quilts”). Broad bands of contrasting color reflect the freedom of expression found in work from this rural Alabama community, while the tangible interaction of heart and hand brings new energy to the entire quilt marketplace.

“Prior to Gee’s Bend, even great examples of that kind of quilt might bring $300 to $700,” says Julie Silber of The Quilt Complex in Albion, California. James Yohe of Ameringer & Yohe Fine Art in New York reports that these quilts, made with well-worn blue denim or corduroy swatches, sell for $8,000 and up, with museums purchasing the rarest works at more than six times that figure.
“The eyes of many viewers were opened to the powerful aesthetic skills needed in designing quilts,” says Lauren Whitley, assistant curator of textile and fashion arts at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

The Gee’s Bend shows have focused attention on the many styles of patchwork and appliqué. Stitched in layers that include a cotton or woolen interior known as batting, and an expanse of plain fabric called the backing, quilts may be described as a fabric sandwich. The form reached its zenith in 19th-century America, but necessity and artistry spurred 20th-century women, and occasionally men, to create beautiful bedcovers. The 1971 show “Abstract Design in American Quilts” at the Whitney Museum of American Art and the nation’s bicentennial renewed interest in making and collecting quilts. This backfired when reproduction quilts made in China contributed to a decline in prices during the 1990s.

However, collecting interest is on the upswing in certain categories. For example, Gerald Roy of Pilgrim/Roy in Warner, New Hampshire, reports a rising interest in African-American quilts that he describes as “spontaneous and uncomplicated responses to fabrics.” And Stephen Fletcher of the auction house Skinner Inc. in Bolton, Massachusetts, says now is a good time for collectors to consider purchasing antique quilts, since “American textiles have fallen out of favor for no other reason than changing tastes.” One example of this market drop is the Baltimore Album quilt that Silber sold for $110,000 at Sotheby’s in 1988 and that was auctioned a decade later for $54,000.

Prized because each intensely appliquéd square in an album quilt is made by a different person, those from Baltimore feature distinctive eagle and flag motifs. Maryland dealer Stella Rubin notes that while several exceptional Baltimore Albums sold for six figures in the 1980s, nothing comparable has been on the market recently. However, floral album quilts are available at prices ranging from $10,000 to $30,000. She suggests collectors also look for 19th-century pictorial quilts featuring houses and other buildings, people and animals, which will always garner attention. Tom Woodard of Woodard & Greenstein in New York still sees good late 19th-century pieced quilts such as a recently acquired Shattered Star set in circular borders, but his partner Blanche Greenstein adds, “Very few great ones.”