This exhibition at the Royal Ontario Museum features more than 20 Canadian-made quilts from the 1850s to the present day (29 June–17 November). It uncovers a complex craft, revealing how quilts have always been more than domestic decoration or a source of warmth, and emphasising their status as treasured heirlooms, souvenirs of significant events and emblems of community and sustainability. Highlights on display include Frederica Matilda Tompkins’s intricately detailed Log cabin quilt ( c.
1890) and a quilt made by Kinu Murakami during her imprisonment in an internment camp in British Columbia during the Second World War, fashioned almost entirely out of reused cigarette silks depicting British soldiers. Find out more from the Royal Ontario Museum’s website . Preview below | View Apollo’s Art Diary Quilt (1942–45), Kinu Murakami.
Photo: © Royal Ontario Museum Log cabin quilt ( c . 1890), Frederica Matilda Tompkins. Photo: © Royal Ontario Museum Northern Night (1955), designed by Ada B.
Torrance, sewn by Torrance and members of Simcoe County Arts and Crafts Association, Orillia, Ontario. Photo: © Royal Ontario Museum Subscribe to get unlimited and exclusive access to the top art stories, interviews and exhibition reviews. The quilts made in Gee’s Bend, Alabama are often compared with modern paintings, but should be seen as great works in their own right The influential Sami artist talks to Apollo about how she has always woven politics and protest into her work .