Quilt Stories: The Ella King Torrey Collection of African American Quilts

Quilt Stories: The Ella King Torrey Collection of African American Quilts and Other Recent Quilt Acquisitions is on exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art until March 1, 2009. According the museum's website:

The exhibit "includes thirteen examples by leading Southern quiltmakers. The collection was formed between 1980 and 1983 while Ms. Torrey was conducting fieldwork on African American quiltmaking with Maude Southwell Wahlman. Among its highlights are an appliquéd "word quilt" by the Mississippi artist Sarah Mary Taylor (born 1916) and one of her "hand" quilts, a version commissioned for the film The Color Purple. Two quilts in the collection are by Taylor’s mother, Pearlie Posey (1894–1984), who in 1980 followed her daughter’s lead and began creating rainbow-hued figurative appliqué quilts. "

The show is curated by Dilys Blum, Curator of Costume and Textiles. Ella King Torrey, 45, a Philadelphia native, took her own life in 2003. She had been director of Pew Fellowships in the Arts and President of the Art Institute of San Francisco. (Photo is quilt by Sarah Mary Taylor.)