Bisa Butler
To God and Truth
2019
Printed cotton; pieced, appliquéd, and quilted
Bisa Butler sees her work as bringing the enduring tradition of African American quilting into the future. Titled after the motto of Morris Brown College, this quilt is based on a photograph exhibited by W. E. B. Du Bois at the 1900 Paris Exposition, where it was among 300 images intended to show African American progress after Emancipation. Butler renders nine scholar-athletes in thousands of pieces of brightly colored cotton textiles including Nigerian hand-dyed batiks, African wax-resist cottons, South African shweshwe cloth, and Ghanaian kente cloth, bringing them alive in vibrant color, pattern, and texture.
John H. and Ernestine A. Payne Fund, The Heritage Fund for a Diverse Collection, and Arthur Mason Knapp Fund.
© Bisa Butler and Claire Oliver Gallery.