Loretta Pettway

Loretta Pettway (b. 1942), Medallion (detail), c. 1960

Synthetic knit and cotton stacking material, 80 x 70 in.; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Souls Grown Deep Foundation

Loretta Pettway’s quilts show the resistance, or reluctance, to make quilts the way anyone else would; she became a fine technician, but that rarely seems to be what she cares most about. In this work, she deliberately surrounds an area of six blocks with black and white frames whose irregularity reinforces the drama and energy of the piece.

Here the focus is on the inherent design elements and abstract imagery in the quilts rather than as finished objects.