Claire Oliver Gallery in New York will present “Masters of the Stitch: Threaded Stories,” a historic selling exhibition drawn from the personal collection of artist and curator Carolyn Mazloomi, from May 29 to August 8, 2026. The show features 12 artists—including Wendell Brown, Marion Coleman, Carolyn Crump, Michael A. Cummings, and others—whose quilts function as fine art, historical archive, and cultural testimony. Mazloomi, founder of the Women of Color Quilters Network, has spent over four decades assembling this collection, which is recognized as one of the most significant archives of Black quiltmaking in the United States, with major acquisitions already made by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the International Quilt Museum.
This exhibition matters because it positions Black quiltmaking as a vital, formally sophisticated chapter in American art history, challenging its historical relegation to folk craft. By offering collectors and institutions a rare opportunity to acquire works from Mazloomi’s lifetime gathering, the show aims to preserve Black cultural narratives—family histories, migration stories, spiritual traditions, and civil rights accounts—that might otherwise be overlooked. Claire Oliver Gallery frames the presentation as an act of cultural and art historical preservation, ensuring these textiles are treasured for generations and recognized as a central part of the American art canon.