Articles of Interest
Antique Quilts in the Twenty First Century-Collections and Exhibitions: An Insider's View © Shelly Zegart,- a renowned curator, author, appraiser and broker whose quilt collection is now owned by the Art Institute of Chicago, is a co-founder and Past President of The Alliance for American Quilts. This article was first published in Selvedge Magazine in 2004.
By all accounts, the quilt revival that began in the late 1960’s is still going strong. It has recently been reported that more than twenty million people are currently involved in the business and creation of quilts. Quilt Festivals are happenings all over the world and people are taking quiltmaking classes at a furious pace. What does all of this activity mean for collecting and exhibiting antique quilts? Through more than twenty five years of working with various quilt documentation projects, as an appraiser, collector, consultant and broker of fine quilts, I became familiar with most institutional and private collections. Asked by Nihon Vogue in 1998 to author a publication, “American Quilt Collections: Antique Quilt Masterpieces” as a guide to public and private collections in the United States for quilt aficionados, led to research into more than one hundred and fifty collections both public and private.
In 1992 as moderator for a conference on Collecting at "Louisville Celebrates the American Quilt.", research led me to the facts that only a few institutions collected quilts in the late nineteenth-century. Some included The Concord Museum of Concord, Massachusetts; The Essex Institute of Salem, Massachusetts; and The New York Historical Society of New York, New York. The majority of large public collections began in the early 20th century. In 1910, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City acquired its first American bedcovering. A few early private collectors included Electra Havemeyer Webb, a pioneering collector of Americana, who founded the Shelburne Museum, and Florence Peto, a famous quilt author and collector. In 1952, the Shelburne Museum opened; that same year Mrs. Webb began planning an exhibit of quilts, textiles, and women's needle arts. More than fifty quilts from her personal collection went to the museum.
Bob Neff Tours
Favorite Charities for Quilters Back To Top
