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What's Red and White and Glad all Over?

The Exhibit “Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts” at the American Folk Art Museum

Stephen Fletcher at the American Folk Art Museum

Stephen Fletcher, Executive Vice President and Director of American Furniture & Decorative Arts at the American Folk Art Museum Exhibit Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts

Karen Keane, CEO of Skinner, and I had the opportunity to attend a gala opening of this remarkable exhibit on Thursday night. Everyone who walked in said, “This makes you feel so good,” and I agree. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life.

The exhibit is only open for a few days: from Friday, March 25th through Wednesday, March 30th, and it’s free to the public, so get down to New York and see it if you can. The quilts, all from the collection of Joanna S. Rose, are housed at Park Avenue Armory in New York. The drill hall there is gigantic: about 650 quilts fill the space, suspended in air. Thanks to almost invisible rigging, it looks like they’re just floating.

The pamphlet for the exhibition explained why there are so many antique red and white quilts: “The popularity of this deceptively simple color combination, apart from its intrinsic aesthetic appeal, can be traced to a basic scientific reality: the extraordinary colorfastness of turkey red dye.” Turkey red dye originally comes from the country Turkey, but cotton dyed this color started to be produced in American mills in 1868, leading to a boom in red and white quilt patterns.

People attending the gala were encouraged to wear red and white, so I wore a red tie and red polka dot socks. Karen wore this dress that had an applied sequin geometric design that looked almost like a red and white quilt. I must have heard at least eight people compliment her, but I don’t think anybody told me they liked my red tie.

I left the exhibit thinking about how these quilts were made to be put on beds and keep people warm, and yet when you put 650 of them together, they create something totally different: an incredible giant work of art.  It was wonderful, and I hope you all get a chance to see it.

Visit “Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts” at the American Folk Museum web site to learn more. There’s also an interactive app of the exhibit available for your smart phone.

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