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Estimate: $ 10,000 - $ 15,000
MICHAEL A. CUMMINGS (1945 - ) Martin Luther King Jr.
Quilt with appliqué, including fabrics, plastic letters and a metal sign, 2013. 1854x1346 mm; 73x53 inches. Signed and dated in ink, lower left recto. Signed, titled, dated and inscribed "73x53" in ink on a fabric label, verso.
Provenance: collection of the artist, New York.
This narrative quilt from Michael Cummings highlights various quotes by Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. stitched on its surface. Stitched on the quilt are also the names of people that marched and died during the Civil Rights movement, including Medgar Evers, Denise McNair and Addie Mae Collins. The surface is embellished with text, a blazer, plastic letters, and a metal sign.
Cummings is widely regarded as one of the nation's leading African American quilters. A Los Angeles native, he moved to New York City in 1970 and became friends with Romare Bearden. He experimented with collage in various media, and by 1975, moved strictly to fabric. Today, he lives and works in Harlem. Other quilts by Cummings are in the permanent collections of the American Craft Museum, New York, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the California African American Museum, Atlanta Life Insurance, Renwick Gallery, the Smithsonian Institution, and the Museum of Art and Design, New York. Cummings was previously commissioned by the Art in Embassies, Absolut Vodka, the City of Knoxville, the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, the PerCent for Art, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs, and HBO.
