Marlene Bennett Jones
Denim, corduroy and cotton
The Quiltmakers of Gee’s Bend
Gee’s Bend, officially known as Boykin, is a remote settlement on a hair-pin bend of the Alabama River. The Bend’s residents are descendants of the enslaved people who worked on the cotton plantation established there in 1816 by Joseph Gee.
After the American Civil War (1861–65), many of the formerly enslaved people remained on the plantation working as sharecroppers, who were obliged to give part of their crop to the landowner, and many inhabitants today still bear the surnames of their ancestors’ enslavers. The community was able to remain intact due to Government loans provided during the Depression which enabled tenants to buy the land they farmed and protected them from forced evictions.
This continuity allowed a unique tradition of quiltmaking to survive and be passed down through generations of women. Most Gee’s Bend quilts are improvisational or “my way” quilts. Quiltmakers start with basic forms then head off ‘their way’ with unexpected patterns, unusual colours and surprising rhythms. Not originally conceived of as formal artworks, quilts were both decorative and necessary objects, keeping families warm and making use of fabric scraps.
In the 1960s, spurred on by Martin Luther King Jr’s visit to the local Baptist church, community members became active in the civil rights movement, despite forceful opposition from local white authorities.
During this period, local women came together in the nearby town of Rehoboth to found the Freedom Quilting Bee, a workers’ co-operative that provided much needed economic opportunity and political empowerment, and helped to raise the national profile of the quilters.
The quilts presented in this gallery range in date from the 1930s to 2021, reflecting a tradition that continues to thrive and develop in Gee’s Bend to this day.*
From the exhibition
Souls Grown Deep like the Rivers: Black Artists from the American South
(March - June 2023)
Discover the Black artists from the Southeastern United States who created some of the most spectacular and ingenious works of the last century.
For generations, Black artists from the American South have forged a unique art tradition. Working in near isolation from established practices, they have created masterpieces that articulate America’s painful past – the inhuman practice of enslavement, the cruel segregationist policies of the Jim Crow era, and institutionalised racism.
Drawing its title from the work of Langston Hughes, Souls Grown Deep like the Rivers brings together sculpture, paintings, reliefs, drawings, and quilts, most of which will be seen in the UK and Europe for the first time. It will also feature the celebrated quiltmakers of Gee’s Bend, Alabama and the neighbouring communities of Rehoboth and Alberta.
Made from the materials available locally – like clay, driftwood, roots, soil, recycled and cast-off objects – the 64 works range from the mid 20th century to today. Many respond to issues that are global in nature: from economic inequality, oppression and social marginalisation, to sexuality, the influence of place and ancestral memory.
Artists include Thornton Dial, Lonnie Holley, Ronald Lockett, Joe Minter, Hawkins Bolden, Bessie Harvey, Charles Williams, Mary T. Smith, Purvis Young, Mose Tolliver, Nellie Mae Rowe, Mary Lee Bendolph, Marlene Bennett Jones, Martha Jane Pettway, Loretta Pettway, and Henry and Georgia Speller.
[*Royal Academy]
Taken in the Royal Academy