A History of African American Art: Harriet Powers-4: Pictorial Quilt (Strategies of Storytelling)

Welcome to the Seeing Art History classroom’s discussion of the African American artist Harriet Powers.
This quilt, known as a Pictorial Quilt, is the second of two quilts that we have by Harriet Powers. Panels depicting stories from the Bible, such as the examples of Job and Jonah, are interspersed with panels depicting more recent, but no less astonishing, events. By transforming an oral tradition into a strategy of visual storytelling, this quilt is a sermon made material.
Written and Narrated by Dr. James Romaine