Quilts and Color: The Pilgrim / Roy Collection

The American quilt as modern art

Quilts and Color presents more than 60 graphically bold American quilts from the Pilgrim/Roy Collection, one of the finest and largest collections of quilts in the world. Influenced by twentieth-century art developments such as Abstraction, Op art and the Color Field movement, Paul Pilgrim and Gerald Roy were among the first to appreciate quilts as more than simply decorative bedcovers, women’s fancy work or symbols of a rustic past. Reproduced brilliantly and arranged by ideas based in color theory--Vibrations, Mixtures, Gradations, Harmonies, Contrasts, Variations and Optical Illusions--each quilt in this book is celebrated as a unique work of art. The accompanying text also sheds light on the social and cultural history of the quilts and the practices and aspirations of their mostly anonymous makers, who created such works of enduring beauty and arresting visual impact. Quilts and Color accompanies an exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.