Michael A. Cummings

American artist and quilter

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Michael A. Cummings
Born	Michael Arthur Cummings (1945-11-28) November 28, 1945 (age 78) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Education	Empire College
Occupation	Visual artist
Known for	Painting, textile arts, quilting, collage
Website	michaelcummings.com

Michael Arthur Cummings (born November 28, 1945) is an American visual artist and quilter. He lives in Harlem, New York.

Early life

Cummings grew up in Los Angeles, California, and earned a BA degree in American art history at Empire College. He moved to New York in the early 1970s to take a position with the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.^[1] He worked with event planner Karin Bacon. Cummings spent his early artistic career as a part-time collage (with Romare Bearden as a mentor) and paint artist.^[1]

After a work project to create a cloth banner for an exhibition in 1973, Cummings discovered his love for working with fabric and taught himself to quilt by studying the works of local quilters and how-to quilt magazines and books.^[2]

Cummings was in a pilot program that created the Studio in a School program in the 1970s. Philanthropist Agnes Gund funded the program and visited the artists many times.^{[citation needed]}

Cummings also worked at the New York State Council on the Arts for many years before retiring.^{[citation needed]}

Quilting style and career

Cummings quilts in the narrative, story-telling tradition and is one of a few nationally known male quiltmakers. His work often features bright, colorful African themes and African American historical themes. Major quilt series include the "African Jazz" series (1990), the "Haitian Mermaid" series (1996), and the "Josephine Baker" series (2000).

The U.S. State Department has posted several of Cummings' quilts in its embassies (Rwanda and Mali) through its Art in Embassies program.^[3] Brands such as Absolut Vodka and HBO have commissioned his work,^[1] and his work is held in the permanent collection of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York,^[4] among others. Whoopi Goldberg and Bill Cosby collect Cummings' quilts.

Public collections

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library
International Quilt Study Center & Museum Quilt House, University of Nebraska-Lincoln (Young Obama + Slave Ship...Henrietta Marie)
Museum of Art, Michigan State University (African Jazz)
Museum of Spirits, Stockholm, Sweden (Absolut Jazz)
Brooklyn Museum, New York, New York (President Obama)
Museum of Arts and Design, New York City, New York (I'll Fly Away)^[4]
California African American Museum, Los Angeles, California (Springtime in Memphis)
Renwick Gallery (Smithsonian Institution) Washington, D.C. (Haitian Mermaid)
Underground Railroad Freedom Center, Cincinnati, Ohio (Harriet Tubman...Leading family to freedom)

Women of Color Quilters Network

Cummings is a founding member of the Women of Color Quilters Network, founded by Carolyn L. Mazloomi.^[5]

Works illustrated

In the Hollow of Your Hand – collected by Alice McGill, with pictures by Michael Cummings^[6]

Books that include Cummings' quilts

Spirits of the Cloth by Carolyn Mazloomi (1987)
Always There: The African American Presence in American Quilts' by Cuesta Benberry (1992)
American Quiltmaking: 1970-2000 by Eleanor Levie (2004)
Contemporary Quilt Art by Kate Lenkowsky (2008)
Masters: Art Quilts: Major Works by Leading Artists by Martha Sielman (2008)
Art Quilt Portfolio: The Natural World by Martha Sielman (2012)
Tragic Soul-Life by Terrence L. Johnson (2012) - jacket cover
Art Quilt Portfolio: People & Portraits by Martha Sielman (2013)
Patchwork & Stitching (2016) - Australian publication
Quilts and Human Rights by Macdowell, Worrall, Swanson, and Donaldson (2016)

Awards and honors

Cummings is a recipient of a 2023 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.^[7]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Mazloomi, Carolyn L. (2023). "Michael A. Cummings: African American Quilter". Arts.gov. National Endowment for the Arts. Retrieved June 25, 2023.
^ Lock, Graham (2008). The Hearing Eye: Jazz & Blues Influences in African American Visual Art. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199887675.
^ "Michael Cummings". Art in Embassies. U.S. Department of State. n.d. Archived from the original on May 21, 2011. Retrieved June 25, 2023.
^ ^a ^b "Michael Cummings: I'll Fly Away". madmuseum.org. Museum of Arts and Design. n.d. Retrieved June 25, 2023.
^ Hicks, Kyra E. (2003). Black Threads: An African American Quilting Sourcebook. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company. ISBN 9780786413744. OCLC 50279954.
^ McGill, Alice (1999). In the Hollow of Your Hand: Slave Lullabies. Michael Cummings, illustrator. Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 9780395857557. OCLC 36942522.
^ "NEA National Heritage Fellowships 2023". www.arts.gov. National Endowment for the Arts. n.d. Retrieved June 23, 2023.