Myrah Brown Green, In My Akwabaa Form, 2000, cotton fabric and cotton batt, 95 × 86 in. (241.3 × 218.4 cm), Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Fleur S. Bresler, 2023.40.19, © 2000, Myrah Brown Green
Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum
1661 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC
In 2023, the Smithsonian American Art Museum acquired thirty-five quilts from the collection of Dr. Carolyn Mazloomi. Mazloomi, who holds a doctorate in aerospace engineering, is a prolific artist, curator, and scholar. In 1981, she founded the African American Quilt Guild of Los Angeles, and then, in 1985, she founded the Women of Color Quilters Network, fulfilling the desire of isolated makers to connect and continue Black textile traditions.
The selection of quilts acquired by the museum and featured in this exhibition is remarkable in its scope and groundbreaking in its representation of Black history and culture as told with needle and thread. This exhibition honors the legacy of Mazloomi and celebrates members of the Women of Color Quilters Network.
The exhibition is organized by Mary Savig, the Lloyd Herman Curator of Craft at SAAM's Renwick Gallery, and Aleia Brown, the David Julian and Virginia Suther Whichard Distinguished Professor in the Humanities at East Carolina University.
