Antique Ohio Amish quilts from the Darwin D. Bearley collection, including more than 40 bed, crib and doll quilts, illustrating the breadth of the Ohio Amish quilt making tradition between 1880 and 1940, are curently on display at the San Jose Quilt Museum in San Jose, Calif. The strong graphics and vivid color combinations of these quilts have inspired artists and quilt makers since they were first seen outside the Amish community.
Darwin D. Bearley of Akron, Ohio, began collecting quilts in Ohio in the early 1970s and quickly converted his interest into a business. During this time period, the market for quilts was growing among collectors. Bearley traveled all over the Midwest to seek out the best quilts, knocking on doors of Amish homes where he knew or had heard there might be quilts.
Like many dealers, he kept a number of what were considered the rarest finds for his personal collection. Visitors to the exhibit will see how a small group of Amish women created, over a period of about 50 years, a powerful body of work that reflects their culture and aesthetics.
Three galleries are filled with stunning examples of block patterns favored by the Ohio Amish, including Log Cabins, Roman Stripe, Nine Patch and Ocean Waves. All these quilts exemplify the hallmark of the Ohio Amish style, the use of small brightly colored pieces showcased against dark backgrounds. They further illustrate that their makers had an intuitive sense of color and understood how to manipulate hue and value to achieve sparkle and glow.
“Plain” quilts, a more subtle artistic expression than the colorful pieced quilts, consist of a large expanse of a solid fabric with a contrasting border. Amish are known for their exquisite hand quilting and the plain quilts are filled with complex feathered wreaths and cable designs.
For more information, visit www.sjquiltmuseum.org.