Bending art history.

• Author: Freund, Charles Paul
• Position: Artifact - Quilt making in Gee's Bend - Brief article

THIS ISN'T AN abstract expressionist canvas. It's a quilt. It comes from Gee's Bend, Alabama, where an isolated black community long ago developed its own vision based on necessity (drafty cabins), availability (castoff fabrics), and creative originality.

The now-famous quilts of Gee's Bend were "discovered" in the 1990s by William Arnett, a collector of "vernacular art" and have since become a phenomenon: as museum exhibits, as a source of study (see, most recently, Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt, from Tinwood Books), as a line of stamps from the U.S. Postal Service, and of course as a collectors' market.

While some writers have ridiculed treating quilts as art, others have celebrated Gee's Bend as "a villageful of Paul Klees." Critics like Arnett object...