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Finishing the Quilt
Nan Phelps (1904–1990)
1980
Oil on canvas 
28 1/2 x 44 1/4"
Collection…
Finishing the Quilt
Finishing the Quilt
Nan Phelps (1904–1990)
1980
Oil on canvas 
28 1/2 x 44 1/4"
Collection…
Finishing the Quilt Nan Phelps (1904–1990) 1980 Oil on canvas 28 1/2 x 44 1/4" Collection American Folk Art Museum, New York Gift of Robert Phelps in loving memory of his wife, Nan Phelps, 1992.18.1 Photo by Gavin Ashworth
Record Details

Finishing the Quilt

Artist ((1904–1990))
Date1980
Place/RegionHamilton, Ohio
MediumOil on canvas
Dimensions28 1/2 × 44 1/4"
Credit LineGift of Robert Phelps in loving memory of his wife, Nan Phelps
Accession number1992.18.1
CopyrightCopyright for this work is under review.
Description

Nan Phelps engages in a sense of life review as she contemplates the humble beauty and familiarity of a scene enacted innumerable times through generations of women. Gathered around a quilting frame, confident and competent, the women of all ages form a circle of community whose continuity is ensured by the presence of a young pregnant woman. It is difficult not to draw comparisons with Grandma Moses, whose memory paintings of a generation earlier evoked similar emotions of an enduring yet changing landscape. The serenity and constancy of the scene belie the tough narrative of Phelps’s own life. The second oldest of eleven children born into an impoverished family in Kentucky, she was forced to leave school after the eighth grade to care for her brothers and sisters. She entered into an abusive marriage at age fifteen and, after three years, fled with her two children to Hamilton, Ohio. There she met and married her second husband, Robert Phelps, in 1929, and bore three more children. Phelps began to paint during the 1930s, and gained recognition in the post-war years of the 1940s. Like Grandma Moses, her expressive scenes reveled in the small pleasures of the everyday and provided a sense of calm stability in turbulent times.

Stacy C. Hollander, “Nan Phelps,” exhibition brochure for American Perspectives: Stories from the American Folk Art Museum Collection (New York: American Folk Art Museum, 2020).

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information. 

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