The healing arts gallery space on Level 1 of the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center will host the exhibition “Amish Quilts: Objects of Modern Art – An Exhibition from the International Quilt Museum, University of Nebraska-Lincoln,” through Feb. 27.
The art world first took note of the similarities between quilts and modern art in 1971, when the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York exhibited quilts on walls normally reserved for the works of contemporary artists.
Amish quilts, in particular, seem modern in spirit because of their extraordinary scale and geometry and also because their large, single color areas evoke comparisons with the “color field” paintings of such Abstract Expressionist artists as Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko.
Just as those artists produced paintings similar in format but varying in scale and color, classic Lancaster Amish quilts can be seen as color and proportion experiments within a limited range of patterns.
“In this exhibition, viewers are invited to explore the diversity of Amish quilts — their origins, their makers, their development and their connection to abstract art,” said Colleen Heavican Cass, healing arts curator. “These quilts are impressive examples of conventional patterns that are beautifully designed with incredible sensibility to color theory and visual construction.”
The International Quilt Museum at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln holds the most significant and comprehensive collection of Amish quilts in the world. They include classic Pennsylvania Amish quilts from the Jonathan Holstein and Gail Van Der Hoof Collection and Midwestern quilts from the Ardis and Robert James Collection.
Learn more at the International Quilt Museum website.