Untitled (Housetop Variation)

Copied Unidentified (American), Untitled (Housetop Variation), 1920s, wool and cotton, 72 × 62 in. (182.9 × 157.5 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Corrine Riley and museum purchase through the Barbara Coffey Quilt Endowment and the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment, 2016.5.21
Free to use

Artwork Details

Title
Untitled (Housetop Variation)
Artist
Unidentified (American)
Date
1920s
Location
Not on view
Dimensions
72 × 62 in. (182.9 × 157.5 cm)
Credit Line
Gift of Corrine Riley and museum purchase through the Barbara Coffey Quilt Endowment and the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment
Mediums Description
wool and cotton
Classifications
Object Number
2016.5.21

Artwork Description

Improvisational quilts, or those with free-form patterns, are an old, ongoing tradition in African American quilting. They represent a practical need for warmth, but, in the early and mid-twentieth century, they also provided a rare splash of color in drab dwellings. By asserting personal style and the need to live with beautiful things, such quilts reveal "home-making" as a defiant, political act by people whose lives beyond the home were marked by oppression. The maker's identity has often been lost, but the material and aesthetic compositions depart radically from European American quilt patterns and color palettes. African American quilters improvised with available, worn, and patched-together materials to create great beauty from meager means.