While Elizabeth Talford Scott’s undying contributions to fiber art deserve acclaim, she is sadly underappreciated beyond Baltimore, where she lived from the early 1940s until her death in the age of ninety-five in 2011. “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power” exhibition, 2017–20, which debuted at the Tate Modern in London, or in the survey more recent “Called to Create: Black Artists of the American South,” 2022–23, at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. A substantial but concise retrospective here—covering nearly two decades of Scott’s textile production through thirteen extraordinary works—in part remedies those omissions.
Born in 1916 on a plantation near Chester, South Carolina, to a family of sharecroppers, Scott was taught to reuse discarded materials and learned to quilt from an early age. These indelible lessons formed the cornerstone of his unbridled art, which is often festooned with a catholic array of shiny objects. Contemplate the dazzled surfaces of these meticulously sutured amalgams and discover a haptic assortment capable of satisfying even the most insatiable viewer. Take THE Whosit family, 1995, an approximately five-foot-tall ovoid ecstatically adorned with patterned fabric, buttons, beads, stones, shells, sequins, and other miscellaneous items. Or consider upside down, 1992, another unbridled wall piece laden with bric-a-brac of the same scale. As with fractals, the more you look, the more there is to discover. The visual feast continues and reaches a festive crescendo in Anniversary, 1997, adorned with dozens of faux pearls along its wavy edge. Scott’s Byzantine creations play by their own rules and rejoice in a kind of unfettered, bountiful, dizzying and truly unforgettable abundance.
