METAMORPHOSIS
Michael James
Somerset Village, Massachusetts
1983
Machine pieced and machine quilted commercial cotton.
84 x 84 inches, approx. 115 inches (more than 9 1/2 feet) from top to bottom point
Note: This quilt hangs on a specially built A-shaped frame, which is included.

Michael James has long been recognized as one of the world's leading quiltmakers. Examples of his work are included in numerous private and corporate collections as well the collections of the Newark Museum, the Museum of Arts & Design in New York, the Renwick Gallery of the National Museum of American Art (Smithsonian Institution) in Washington, D.C., the Mint Museum of Craft + Design in Charlotte, North Carolina, the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, Kentucky, and the International Quilt Study Center and Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska. Michael currently serves as Department Chair and Ardis James Professor of Textiles, Clothing, and Design in the College of Education and Human Sciences at the University of Nebraska/Lincoln.

METAMORPHOSIS is mounted to hang diagonally on a special A-shaped frame. The composition is a complex combination of curved and straight seams, all rendered with Michael's trademark precision and acute sense of color.

METAMORPHOSIS was originally commissioned for the headquarters of a major US corporation. After many years on exhibit, it was in need of some repair and has just been restored by Michael's studio assistant, Leah Sorensen-Hayes, who worked under his close supervision. She repaired a few small tears and replaced some degraded fabric, in many cases using matching pieces of the original fabric that Michael still had in his studio stash. (Full documentation of the work done on the quilt is available.)

The quilt is now effectively new and looks as fresh and crisp as it did when it first left Michael's studio nearly thirty years ago.

Michael' s early quilts are tightly held in public and private collections and very rarely come into the marketplace.This is a major early work by Michael and a rare opportunity for any serious collector of contemporary quilts.

SOLD

For more information or to purchase, contact Robert Shaw.

View another early quilt by Michael James