2015
Guangzhou, China
Cotton; machine pieced
Gift of the Ardis and Robert James Foundation, IQM 2022.026.0001

Making quilts for purely artistic reasons is a relatively new practice in China. For the past decade, the quilt industry in that country has been rapidly growing, and many businesses, schools, and events now cater directly to quiltmakers. Mr. Wu XunXin, the maker of this quilt, is a professor in the School of Fashion Art at Guangzhou University in southern China who has also served as the director of the China Fashion Color Association. This quilt is part of Mr. Wu's "Color Block" series in which he explores compositions with bright, pure colors that create a dynamic feeling through color gradation. He uses an interesting technique of separating the strip-pieced sections with piping (thin, fabric-wrapped rope).

Acquired in 2022, "Color Block" is the first in the International Quilt Museum's contemporary Chinese quilt collection, a group the museum will be enthusiastically adding to over the next several years.