More than 100 beautiful, fascinating quilts of widely varied styles made primarily by African American women with Bay Area ties, and many of the stories behind them, comprise a compelling new exhibition at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.
“Routed West: Twentieth-Century African American Quilts in California,” opening on June 8 with a free admission day and running through Nov. 30, celebrates Black women and their descendants—artists whose work isn’t often in museums, said BAMPFA Executive Director Julie Rodrigues Widholm at a recent preview.
Exquisite, intricately pieced quilts made in the early 20th century are in the opening section of “Routed West: Twentieth- Century African American Quilts in California” at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive from June 8 through Nov. 30, 2025. (Leslie Katz/Bay City News) 
Curator Elaine Yau is fond of Gerstine Scott’s quilt made of neckties in “Routed West: Twentieth-Century African American Quilts in California” at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive through Nov. 30. (Leslie Katz/BayCity News) 
Oakland quilter Alice Neal paid tribute to her mother in 1955-56’s hand-pieced and quilted “Mary Bright Commemorative Quilt.” (Leslie Katz/Bay City News) 
Some art works in “Routed West: Twentieth-Century African American Quilts in California” are accompanied by sample pieces that visitors are encouraged to touch. (Daria Lugina/Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive) 
Charles Home Cater’s untitled 1985 black-and-white medallion quilt is one of a just a few made by men in “Routed West: Twentieth-Century African American Quilts in California.” (Leslie Katz/Bay City News) 
Pearl Nunley (1888-1952) a seamstress from Arkansas, made “Flower Garden (Sunflower Variation,” the center quilt, in 1940. It’s flanked by quilts by her daughters, who came to California. (Leslie Katz/Bay City News) 
Oakland resident Niambi Clay’s 2025 quilt “Education’s Promise” is inspired by painter Jacob Lawrence’s “Migration Series: Panel 58.” (Leslie Katz/Bay City News)
The exhibit comes in the wake of an unprecedented 2020 gift to the museum of some 3,000 quilts from the estate of scholar Eli Leon (the largest private collection of its kind in the world), who spent decades acquiring the works.
Widholm called the exhibition “one of the most ambitious endeavors” in BAMPFA’s history as well as groundbreaking and radical, with its focus that sways away from economic valuation.
BAMPFA Associate Curator Elaine Yau, a folk-art historian heading a multi-year researching, cataloging and conservation project now at its halfway point, said the exhibit’s aim is to “resist the erasure of work by Black women” and “glean something about intangibles” such as nurturing and caring, as well as to illuminate how “intergenerational legacies live on.”
Her efforts included doing extensive genealogical research and trying varied outreach methods, even cold calling the quiltmakers’ relatives.
Among Yau’s favorites in the show are two by Oakland women: Gerstine Scott’s quilt made of neckties, for its uniqueness, and Alice Neal’s poignant, hand-pieced tribute to her mother, Mary Bright. Neal, who was born in Louisiana, made the sentimental quilt soon after her mother’s death in 1954, using material from the dress Bright was wearing in the photo that provided the basis for the quilt’s portrait, and embroidering important dates on it.
Nearly 90 quilters are represented in the exhibition, which uniquely includes sample pieces visitors are encouraged to touch and offers more than simple wall hangings. Some quilts are situated so viewers can see both front and back and truly appreciate the workmanship; and to consider how many of them are comforting, useful objects meant to be folded and held.
The show is divided into five sections.
“Southern Roots” contains the oldest quilts, made in the early 20th century in segregated Jim Crow South, where slavery’s effects lingered loudly. Many are pieced in a traditional manner; many are utilitarian, stitched together from work clothes or other salvaged fabric.
“Carried and Kept” includes quilts that were brought to California from Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Texas during the Second Great Migration between 1940 and 1970.
“Tending Generations” features groupings of quilts created by members of different generations of the same family, with the younger generations being Californian.
“Rooted West” has quilts dating between 1970 and 2000, when their makers, retired from daily work (as teachers, midwives, nurses, clerks or in the shipyard), had time to be creative and found sustenance and camaraderie in quilting. An arresting black-and-white medallion quilt is by Charles Home Cater (1928-1996), one of four males in the show. A mechanic who served in the U.S. Navy, Cater and his wife opened Cater’s Nook, a thrift store in Oakland where they sold notions—and his quilts.
“A Living Tradition” includes contemporary pieces made since 1980 by younger quiltmakers working in local guilds; some were submitted in response to an open call. These quilts are distinctive for their smaller size and overtly political and social justice themes.
“Routed West” community programming includes tours led by folklore, history of art and African American studies graduate students at 12:15 p.m. Wednesdays, 2 p.m. Sundays and at 1:15 p.m. on Free First Thursdays. Yau leads tours, telling stories of individual quilts, at 2 p.m. June 22 and 1:15 p.m. July 3. Family art-making sessions are on June 8, June 14, June 29, July 12, July 27 and Aug. 31.
“Routed West: Twentieth-Century African American Quilts in California” continues through Nov. 30, 2025 at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2155 Center St., Berkeley. Tickets are $14 general, free for ages 18 and under at bampfa.org.