Mary Lee Bendolph and family entrust over 100 Gee’s Bend Quilts to Souls Grown Deep
ArtDaily
December 2023
Souls Grown Deep has announced that it has been entrusted by artists Mary Lee Bendolph (b. 1933) and Essie Bendolph Pettway (b. 1956) to steward over 100 quilts made by them, with the express goal of their distribution to major collections. Together, their artworks are widely considered among the most inventive and fundamental examples of quiltmaking in Gee’s Bend, the home of “some of the most miraculous works of modern art America has produced” (The New York Times).
Souls Grown Deep has, since the 2016 inception of its Collection Transfer Program, placed 175 quilts by 76 quiltmakers in the permanent collections of 34 museums, with the goal of celebrating the creative contributions of Gee’s Bend, Alabama within the canon of modern American art history and expanding the possibilities of scholarship shedding light on this influential community of artists. Souls Grown Deep will seek to place the Bendolph works in major collections through its Collection Transfer Program. […]