Six hundred fifty red and white quilts will be exhibited for six days at the end of March in a display set up by the Museum of Folk Art. The quilts were collected by a private collector, Joanna S. Rose, and they can be viewed, at no charge, at the Park Avenue Armory (between 66th and 67th St. in New York City). For more details, please check their website.
Inspired by the idea of such an array of red and white quilts, quilt historian and New York’s quilt antiques dealer Laura Fisher has sent us five photos to share with you. I think you will enjoy the information she has sent. The antique quilts are lovely!
Laura Fisher’s
FISHER HERITAGE
305 East 61st Street New York, NY 10065
tel/ 212. 838-2596 fisherheritage@yahoo.com www.laurafisherquilts.com
Methodist Episcopalian Sampler Quilt in Red and White
70″ x 74″ Jacob’s Ladder quilt
This red and white Pine Tree Quilt features a diagonal block setting.
The Mariner’s Compass quilt pattern was always very popular in New England.
Another outstanding red and white quilt
SEEING RED
NYC ABLAZE WITH COLOR AT THE ARMORY & AT FISHER HERITAGE
Fired up by the forthcoming exhibition from the American Folk Art Museum of one collector’s red and white quilts called INFINITE VARIETY, in further celebration of the color red and of quilt art, NYC American antiques dealer Laura Fisher offers a diverse collection of red and white quilts at her gallery throughout the Spring.
At the 67th Street (Park Avenue) Armory from March 25 -30 will be 650 (yup, amazing!) quilts in solid red and white literally hanging from the rafters like nothing ever seen before! Up for only a week, and FREE to the public, lovers of graphic design and of quilts are coming to town to see it and the other ongoing quilt shows at the AFAM.
The color red in quilts is expressive, historic, even biblical in content. Among red and white quilts there are iterations of the two colors that can give clues to age. Earlier 19th century examples feature printed red fabrics with white, and some later 19th century quilts feature printed reds with printed white shirting cottons, as well as solid red. Interest in antique red and white quilts runs the gamut from the bold graphic clarity of the solid red and white examples to the softer appearance of printed reds that many designers select when the small scaled prints work with fabrics based on historic printed cottons.
The collector concentrates on solid red with solid white. Fisher is regarded in the design trade as the queen of two-color antique quilts, offering every shade of red and white, blue and white, green and white, pink and white, yellow and white, orange and white, black and white, lavender and white, brown and white (you get the idea), a selection that distinguishes her inventory. If a client wants a two-color quilt, there is a rainbow’s worth in her gallery.
Red and white used alone was a mostly 19th century phenomenon, later supplanted by the solid pastels and the pastel printed cottons of the 1930s Depression era. For Fisher, when red appears in a 1930s quilt of colorful feedsack prints, it immediately catches the eye (see her current column in The Quilt Life Magazine called “Feedsacks in Motion”).
Also available are antique textiles including coverlets and ticking in the same palette.
Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, from 11:00 – 4:00 or by appointment.
March 2011
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