The Shroud Series: Brotherly Love

This cotton quilt features twenty-eight blocks depicting the American flag on a field of dark blue. The quilt is string tied discreetly. String colors and locations coordinate with the red, white, and blue of the flags, and, atypically, the knots appear on the quilt’s back rather than front.

Fay Pullen Fairbrother (1947-1997) created this quilt in the early 1990s as part of an art installation called The Shroud Series, which explored racial violence in the United States. Several quilts in the series feature colors and designs typically associated with patriotism, and were juxtaposed with representations of racialized hatred in the installation. “The Shroud Series” was on display in the 1994 exhibition “Imagining Families: Images and Voices” at the Anacostia Community Museum.