NEW YORK, NY.- The ArtQuilt Gallery•NYC opened April 5, becoming the only commercial gallery for quilts in New York City, filling a void in the nation’s art center. Located in Manhattan’s Chelsea district, next to The City Quilter, the gallery showcases the best quilts from around the world.
Cathy Izzo and Dale Riehl, co-owners of The City Quilter – the area’s leading quilting supply store – said they have dreamed for years of seeing such a gallery in New York and finally decided to stop waiting for someone else to open one. “As 30-year residents we’ve long lamented the fact that the art world hasn’t given quilting its due as an art form,” said Izzo. “We believe our gallery will serve a need, showcasing the extraordinary range of quilt art and demonstrating how compelling quilts can be.”
“The Chelsea area alone has scores of galleries displaying paintings and sculpture,” noted Riehl. “We intend to show that outstanding quilts can hold their own with any other art.”
Though adjoining The City Quilter on West 25th Street, a gathering point for both hobbyists and professional quilters for 14 years, The ArtQuilt Gallery•NYC has a separate entrance and separate identity. “ As our opening shows make clear, the quilts shown there are museum quality,” Riehl said.
The first exhibition, running April 5 to May 28, is “Quilt Drawing,” devoted to works of the noted artist Daphne Taylor, who was born into a Quaker Philadelphia family and trained as a painter before gravitating into quilting. In her quilts, lines reminiscent of landscape and figure are embroidered, pieced and composed within frameworks ranging from open white spaces to complex color fields. “The results tempt the viewer into a world of light and fragmented reminisces,” critic Mimi Sherman wrote of Taylor’s quilts, which have been displayed at the Museum of Art and Design in New York. Taylor now divides her time between rural Maine and Manhattan, where she chairs the art department at the Friends Seminary School.
Following that debut show, The ArtQuilt Gallery•NYC will feature the work of Japan’s Noriko Endo, who uses thousands of bits of fabric and thread to create astonishingly photorealistic scenes from nature on quilts that have been displayed at the UK Festival of Quilts in Birmingham, England; the National Quilt Museum in Paducah, KY; and the Art du Quilt Expo in France. “As an artist, Noriko Endo never takes a false step,” said renowned American quilter Paula Nadelstern. “Each composition, seamed from an abundance of detail and nuance, reveals new complexities, seducing the viewer to stay a long time and witness her miraculous, sleight of hand dexterity which turns minute slivers of fabric into masterful color compositions.” The Noriko Endo show, titled “Impressionist Quilts,” will run from June 16 to August 6.
“With these opening exhibits we hope to establish our gallery as the place to be seen in New York for the world’s top quilters,” said Izzo, “while also showing that New York art lovers will want to acquire these world class works for their homes.”
Gallery hours:
Tuesday to Saturday, 11 to 6 pm
Sunday & Monday by appointment only
