The St. Louis Art Museum is featuring nine quilts made in Missouri.

This beautiful exhibition complements Quilts in a Material World: Selections from the Winterthur Collection. Missouri Made Quilts focuses on work created from the mid-19th century through the first revival of quilt making in the early 20th, and it shows the continuing influences of technology.

Missouri Made Quilts, 1850–1940, is curated by Zoe Annis Perkins, administrative head of conservation and textile conservator, with the assistance of Suellen Meyer. It is on view through June 1 in the Carolyn C. and William A. McDonnell Textile Gallery at the St. Louis Art Museum.

The styles of quilts produced during this period also reflect social, economic, and political changes. One of the most significant changes was the role of quilting in many women's lives. As the century progressed, quilts changed from being personal narratives documenting marriage, childbirth, and friendships to socially acceptable vehicles for expressing ideas on social issues.

With no voting rights, women used quilt making and other needlework to support reform movements including abolition, temperance, and suffrage.

The beginning of the 20th century marked other changes in quilt making. Quilters began to look back to a romanticized American past for inspiration.

Quilt-making kits and professional patterns also became available for the first time. Though this widespread availability of patterns and fabrics resulted in fewer regional characteristics, Missouri quilts often include multiple, small-figured prints and blocks set on point. Borders may be simple or even non-existent.

Six of the quilts in the exhibition are on loan from the collection of Richard and Suellen Meyer of St. Louis. A stunning example from this collection is a log cabin quilt with a Barn Raising pattern made by a tailor's wife in Fulton, using stylish samples from her husband’s workshop.

Two quilts will be shown from the Museum's collection, one a fine example of a crazy quilt. Made of silk, this example has a wide variety of fabrics pieced in a crazed or fractured format.

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