Flour Sack
Object Details
- Artist
- Thomas Mack
- Date
- 1997
- Medium
- cotton, polyester, batting
- Dimensions
- 97 × 74 1/4 in. (246.4 × 188.6 cm)
- Cite As
- Anacostia Community Museum, Smithsonian Institution
- Caption
- In this quilt made by Thomas Mack (1922-2017), the fronts and backs of flour sacks create a checkerboard, a recurring pattern in the artist’s work. The cotton fabric matches the color of its contents, self-rising flour milled in Mack’s home state of South Carolina. Printed labels pop in full color on the quilt’s front, in addition to supplying a biscuit recipe. The flour sacks also form the binding, while the quilt’s backing is a light pink fabric. On the quilt top, colorful yarn knotted around the rectangles’ edges secure the quilt’s layers.
- Perhaps the island pictured on the flour sack reminded Mack of St. Helena Island, off South Carolina’s coast, where he grew up quilting with his family in a Gullah community. They made quilts using materials at hand, including flour sacks. As New York Times art critic Holland Cotter notes, Mack “elevates them, printed labels and all, to a primary design element.” This quilt was among four by Mack on display in the 1998 exhibition “Man Made: African American Men and Quilting Traditions” at the Anacostia Community Museum (2014.0023.0001, 2014.0023.0003, 2014.0023.0004).
- Accession Number
- 2014.0023.0002
- Type
- quilt
- See more items in
- Anacostia Community Museum Collection
- Data Source
- Anacostia Community Museum
- Restrictions & Rights
- Usage conditions apply
- Record ID
- acm_2014.0023.0002
