Gwendolyn Ann Magee facts for kids

Gwendolyn (Gwen) Ann Magee (August 31, 1943 – April 27, 2011) was an African-American artist. She was famous for her amazing quilts made from fabric, a type of fiber art. Gwen started learning to quilt later in her life. She quickly became well-known for her unique quilts. These quilts often showed abstract designs or told stories about the experiences of African Americans.

Her beautiful artwork can be found in many important places. These include the Mississippi Museum of Art and the Renwick Gallery at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art. Her quilts have also been shown in art exhibits all around the world.

Gwen Magee's Life Story

Gwendolyn Ann Jones was born in 1943 in High Point, North Carolina. Her adoptive mother, Annie Lee Jones, was a schoolteacher. She made sure Gwen was exposed to art, crafts, and museums from a young age. Gwen's parents had many art books at home. She especially loved the books about artists like Van Gogh and Gauguin. She liked their bright and lively use of colors.

After finishing William Penn High School in 1959, Gwen went to the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina (UNC). This college was in Greensboro, a city that was a center for civil rights activities at the time. Gwen was one of only five African-American students in her class. She joined local protests against segregation, which is when people are kept apart because of their race. These experiences deeply influenced her art later on.

After graduating in 1963 with a degree in sociology, Gwen continued her studies. She worked as an assistant on different research projects. During one of these projects in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, she met Dr. D. E. Magee. They got married in 1969. After Dr. Magee finished his medical training, they moved to Jackson, Mississippi. There, they built their careers and raised their two daughters, Kamili and Aliya.

Gwen Magee passed away in Jackson in 2011. She was 67 years old and had been battling a long illness.

Her Journey as an Artist

Gwen Magee started quilting in 1989 because she wanted to make quilts for her daughters to take to college. She took classes at local craft shops. She then joined groups like the Jackson Quilters and the Mississippi Quilt Association. At that time, she was the only African-American member in these groups.

Gwen noticed that some people thought African-American quilters could not make very detailed or "well-made" quilts. This made her determined to prove them wrong. She said, "no one would ever be able to say that my workmanship was shoddy." She quickly became very skilled. She moved from making simple, traditional quilt patterns to creating more complex and meaningful designs. These designs often told stories about African-American history and culture.

Her art was inspired by many things. These included her creative childhood home, her studies in social science, and her involvement in the civil rights movement. Her experiences as a social worker, a business owner, a wife, a mother, and a grandmother also shaped her unique artistic style.

Quilts and Social Justice

Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, Gwen Magee used her quilts to highlight unfairness and injustice. Many of her quilts, like When Hope Unborn Had Died, showed the terrible impact of slavery in the United States. From 2000 to 2004, she created a series of 12 quilts. These were inspired by the famous song "Lift Every Voice and Sing" by James Weldon Johnson.

Gwen also used her textile art to respond to current events. In 2001, when Mississippi voted to keep a symbol of the Confederacy on its state flag, she created Southern Heritage/Southern Shame. This quilt showed images of the Confederate flag, people hanging from ropes, and the hood of a Ku Klux Klan robe. It was a powerful statement against racism. Her quilt, Requiem, showed the loss of African-American culture after Hurricane Katrina caused so much damage in New Orleans.

Where to See Her Art

Gwen Magee's artwork is part of the permanent collections in several museums. These include the Mississippi Museum of Art, the Michigan State University Museum, and the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian Museum of American Art. Her work has also been shown in many other places. These include the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, the National Art Gallery of Namibia, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

She received many awards for her amazing work. These include the Visual Artist of the Year award from the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters in 2003. She also received a United States Artists' Ford Fellow award in 2007 and a Governor's award for excellence in visual arts in 2011.

Exhibitions of Her Work

• "Pieces of the Past: The Art of Gwendolyn Magee", The High Point Museum in High Point, North Carolina (December 5, 2014 – February 21, 2015)
• Lift Every Voice and Sing: The Quilts of Gwendolyn Ann Magee, Gatewood Gallery of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (September 11–November 8, 2014)
• "Journey of the Spirit: The Art of Gwendolyn Magee", Mississippi Museum of Art (2005)

Books Featuring Her Art

Gwen Magee's art has been featured in many books. Here are some of them:

• Ashes of Faith. Bwire, Robert, 2007, cover art.
• A Communion of the Spirits: African-American Quilters, Preservers and Their Stories. Roland Freeman, 1996.
• Color Play. Wolfrom, Joen, 2000.
• Feminist Interpretation of the Bible and the Hermeneutics of Liberation. Schroer, Silvia and Sophia Bietenhard, eds, 2003, cover art.
• Journey of the Spirit: The Art of Gwendolyn A. Magee. Mississippi Museum of Art, 2004.
• Mississippi Quilts. Mary Elizabeth Johnson, 2001.
• "Portfolio 12". Studio Art Quilt Associates publication, 2005.
• Spirits of the Cloth: Contemporary African American Quilts. Carolyn Mazloomi, 1998.
• Textural Rhythms: Quilting the Jazz Tradition. Carolyn Mazloomi, 2007.
• The Mississippi Story. Mississippi Museum of Art, 2007.
• Threads of Faith: Recent Works From the Women of Color Quilters Network. Carolyn Mazloomi and Patricia C. Pongracz, 2004.

See also

In Spanish: Gwendolyn Ann Magee para niños