AUSTIN, TX.- The Austin Museum of Art presents the exhibit Mary Lee Bendolph, Gee´s Bend Quilts, and Beyong. Mary Lee Bendolph, Gee’s Bend Quilts, and Beyond celebrates the resonance of the strikingly innovative, abstract quilts by a group of African American women from Gee’s Bend, Alabama. This focused exhibition is the first to highlight one of Gee’s Bend’s most original artists, Mary Lee Bendolph, her predecessors and progeny, and the artistic dialogue they share with artists beyond their quilting community. Twelve dramatically designed, richly colored quilts created by Mary Lee Bendolph, Louisiana Pettway Bendolph, Aolar Mosely, and Essie B. Pettway, are presented alongside complex and evocative found object sculptures by Alabama artists Thornton Dial and Lonnie Holley, who have both been influenced by the quilts and the quiltmakers. Several fine art prints by two of the quiltmakers and documentary films about the artists provide a further context for their creative exchange. A full-color, scholarly catalogue co-published by the Austin Museum of Art and Tinwood Alliance, Atlanta, accompanies the exhibition.