What's New

What's New
& News in Quilting Around the World

By Lois Marilyn Verma

Nebraska Nets Yet Another Landmark Quilt Collection

Log Cabin, 82" x 82", set in a variant of the straight furrow design, by unknown maker, c. 1885; cotton.

More than 35 years ago, Gail van der Hoof and Jonathan Holstein began what Jon calls an "interesting and compelling journey" as they amassed a significant collection of mostly pieced quilts. When they began, Jon says, there was little interest in "ordinary" pieced quilts.

But all that has changed dramatically, and the International Quilt Study Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln has just announced the acquisition of these 400 quilts, valued in excess of $2.2 million. The gift to the IQSC is a joint venture between Jon and benefactors Ardis and Robert James. The Jameses gave nearly 950 quilts to the university in 1997 and inspired the formation of the center, and have made other significant donations since so that its collection now numbers in excess of 1,600 quilts.

Applique with Pot of Flowers, 92" x 92", by Jennie Cleland, of Pennsylvania, 1863; cotton.

This latest addition includes 60 quilts from the show at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York that Jon and Gail curated in 1971. Credited with being the first large-scale quilt exhibit in a mainstream art museum, it was the first to present quilts solely for their aesthetic qualities. Among the other pieced and appliqued works in the group are 108 Amish quilts including 90 from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.

As an added bonus, the IQSC will receive Jon's archives. "I am not a particularly well-organized person," he says, "but I saved every scrap of paper that had anything to do with the quilts and our research." All of this material, along with his correspondence and exhibition records, will go into the quilt archives in the special collections section of the UNL library.

Trip Around the World (or Sunshine and Shadow), 76" x 76", maker unknown, from Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, c. 1920; wool.

Photos courtesy of Jonathan Holstein.

In explaining his decision to part with the collection, Jon says his involvement with what has become the IQSC began in 1996 after meeting the Jameses, whom he describes as his "kindred spirits. " Noting the center's existing collection of "spectacular" quilts, its well-respected personnel, and the building of its state-of-the-art quilt storage facility among other developments at the university, Jon said he was sure the collection and his archives would be well cared for, respected, and made available to scholars and quilt lovers.

Carolyn Ducey, IQSC curator, says an exhibition of quilts from the Holstein collection is planned for February 2005 at the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery at UNL as part of the IQSC's second biennial symposium, Collectors and Collecting.