The Metropolitan Museum of Art has received a major gift of works by contemporary African-American artists from the South.
The museum says the donation includes 20 works by female quilters in Gee’s (jeez) Bend, a remote community in Alabama.
It also contains 10 pieces by Thornton Dial, as well as paintings, drawings and mixed media works by Lonnie Holley, Nellie Mae Rowe and others.
The gift of 57 works comes from the Atlanta-based Souls Grown Deep Foundation. The nonprofit was started in 2010 by art historian William Arnett to bring attention to self-taught African-American artists.
Arnett says in a statement that the collection documents a little-known artistic tradition that began in the Deep South, likely during the earliest days of slavery.
An exhibition of the works is planned for 2016.
