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Louisiana Bendolph

African American artist (born 1960)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 21, 2025
Entity authorityQ23304603 ↗
Source-derived summary

Louisiana Bendolph (born October 20, 1960) is an American visual artist and quilt maker. Bendolph is associated with The Quilts of Gee's Bend and her work has been considered more conceptual because of her use of vibrant color.

Art

Bendolph's work begins with sketches, and ultimately moves to fabric through innovation and improvisation. Her quilts typically start out as housetop, a pattern based on concentric squares resembling a birds-eye-view of a roof of a house, but during her quilting process, take on new shapes.

Bendolph's creations have exhibited at the Addison Ripley Gallery in Washington, D.C., and in Seattle at the Greg Kucera Gallery. Her work in the exhibition "Gee's Bend: The Architecture of the Quilt" was on display at the Walters Art Museum in 2007.

Bendolph also produces prints from etchings. Her print "American Housetop (for the Arnetts)" (2005), which is dedicated to the family who linked Gee's Bend with the museum world, was on display at Lehman College Art Gallery in 2015 along with 14 quilts and photographs.

Her 2013 work, entitled As I Leave I Shall Return, is also on display at the Baltimore Museum of Art.

Personal life

Louisiana Bendolph was born to Rita Mae Pettway and Samuel Small.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Louisiana Bendolph” as african American artist (born 1960). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Louisiana, Bendolph and African.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1960, 2007, 2005, 2015—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1960-10-20. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Louisiana, Bendolph and African providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Louisiana Bendolph”, the useful work is to connect “african American artist (born 1960)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q23304603. VIAF identifies the subject as 4702157643259338590001. The Library of Congress control number is no2020110151. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1960, 2007, 2005 and 2015.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Louisiana Bendolph”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Louisiana Bendolph primary sources, Louisiana Bendolph archive and Louisiana research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Louisiana Bendolph”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Louisiana Bendolph” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.