Gwendolyn Ann Magee

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{{Infobox artist | name = Gwendolyn Ann Magee | image = | image_size = | alt = | caption = | birth_name = Gwendolyn Ann Jones | birth_date = 1943 | birth_place = High Point, North Carolina | death_date = 2011 | death_place = Jackson, Mississippi | resting_place = | resting_place_coordinates = | nationality = African American | alma_mater = | movement = | spouse = | awards = [[Mississippi Governor's Arts Award], Ford Fellow, United States Artists Fellowship, Fellow Craftsmen's Guild of Mississippi, "Honored Artist" - Mississippi State Committee/National Museum of Women in the Arts (MSC/NMWA), Mississippi Arts Commission Artist Fellowship, Visual Artist of the Year - Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters | website = | field = Fiber art }}

Gwendolyn Magee (1943 - April 27, 2011) was an African American fiber artist. Learning to quilt in the middle of her life, Magee quickly became known in the world of fiber art for her abstract and narrative quilts. Magee's work can be found in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the Mississippi Museum of Art and has been exhibited internationally and archived at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

Biography

Magee was born Gwendolyn (Gwen) Jones in 1943 in High Point, North Carolina. Graduating in 1959 from William Penn High School in High Point, she entered the Woman's College of the University of North Carolina in nearby Greensboro. During her time at UNC, Greensboro was a center of civil rights activities, and Magee became active in local demonstrations against segregation in the community. After her 1963 graduation with a BA in sociology, Jones continued graduate study in social science at Kent State and Washington universities, working as an assistant with various research projects. She never earned a graduate degree, but did assist with many fieldwork studies. It was during one of these studies in Mound Bayou, Mississippi that she met Dr. D. E. Magee, an ophthalmologist who would become her husband. After Dr. Magee completed his residency in Philadelphia, the couple moved to Jackson, Mississippi, where they established careers and raised their two daughters, Kamili and Aliya.

Art career

As a child Magee was exposed to art, craft and museums by her adoptive mother, a schoolteacher named Annie Lee Jones. Magee's art, which she came to in midlife, was informed by her childhood in a creative home, her education in the social sciences, participation in the civil rights movement, careers in social work and business, and her experiences as a wife, mother, and grandmother.

Exhibition History

Lift Every Voice and Sing: The Quilts of Gwendolyn Ann Magee, Gatewood Gallery of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (September 11–November 8, 2014)

Published works

• Ashes of Faith. Bwire, Robert, 2007, cover art.
• A Communion of the Spirits: African-American Quilters, Preservers and Their Stories. Roland Freeman, 1996.
• Color Play. Wolfrom, Joen, 2000.
• Feminist Interpretation of the Bible and the Hermeneutics of Liberation. Schroer, Silvia and Sophia Bietenhard, eds., 2003, cover art.
• Journey of the Spirit: The Art of Gwendolyn A. Magee. Mississippi Museum of Art, 2004.
• Mississippi Quilts. Mary Elizabeth Johnson, 2001.
• Portfolio 12. Studio Art Quilt Associates publication, 2005.
• Spirits of the Cloth: Contemporary African American Quilts. Carolyn Mazloomi, 1998.
• Textural Rhythms: Quilting the Jazz Tradition. Carolyn Mazloomi, 2007.
• The Mississippi Story. Mississippi Museum of Art, 2007.
• Threads of Faith: Recent Works From the Women of Color Quilters Network. Carolyn Mazloomi and Patricia C. Pongracz, 2004.

External links

• Official website
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