Biography
Michael A. Cummings is considered the nation's leading African American male quilter, with an ever-expanding influence on the current generation of quilt artists. A native of Los Angeles Cummings moved to New York City in 1970 and began his exploration of the city’s rich cultural environment, acquiring friendships and engaging in spirited dialogues with many of that era’s creative talents, which included artists Norman Lewis, Camille Billops along with Romare Bearden and his wife. Inspired by Bearden’s art and collage making he began experimenting with collage construction in 1973 and soon moved on to fabric collage compositions, using applique techniques. During this period, he also completed his college studies at the State University of New York with an Art History degree and classes in studio art.
A Harlem resident, and a passionate explorer of its history, Cummings lives and works in a 120-year-old Harlem brownstone. The museum like residence and studio are filled with an eclectic collection of African, African American, and multi-cultural art from his international travels, arranged artfully along-side Black memorabilia, period furniture and decorative objects. Now retired from a full-time position with the New York State Council on the Arts, he devotes his time to research in African American culture and quilt making, translating this history into narrative quilts.
Cummings' masterful quilts have brought him national and international attention, and the acquisition of his work by notable collectors -- Bill and Camille Cosby, Whoopi Goldberg, Alonzo Mourning, Renwick Gallery (Smithsonian Institution), Art and Design Museum (NYC), Brooklyn Museum, International Quilt Museum (Lincoln, Nebraska), California African American Museum (Los Angeles), Getty Center for Education in the Arts (Los Angeles), Museum of Art Michigan State University, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, NYC, Studio Museum in Harlem, the American Embassy collection in Mali.
The beauty, simplicity and communicative fluency of Cummings' narrative quilts have attracted commissions from numerous authors and producers of stories. His work has illustrated the collected slave lullabies of author Alice McGill’s children's book, “In the Hollow of Your Hand,” as well promotions for HBO’s Black History film series in 1997, and the House of Seagram’s Absolut Vodka’s ad campaign.
The astute authors and documentarians of late 20th Century quilt artists have sought to profile Cummings’ work in, Facts & Fabrications Unraveling the History of Quilts & Slavery by Barbara Brackman (2006), Spirits of the Cloth: Contemporary African American Quilts by Carolyn Mazloomi (1998), A Communion of the Spirits: African-American Quilters, Preservers and Their Stories by Roland L. Freeman (1996) and he was recently a featured quilter in the nationally broadcast PBS documentary “Craft in America.”
“Cummings was commissioned by the Clinton Presidential Library to create a quilt for their upcoming exhibition “Women’s Voices, Women’s Votes, Women’s Rights” in 2020 and has created quilts for, the Helias Foundation, commemorating the children who died in the Oklahoma City bombing (1997). the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center (2003) and the convention center in Knoxville, Tennessee (2002).
He has received the Tiffany & Co. Foundation (NYC) award (2001) and Excellence in Design award from New York City Art Commission (2001).
- John Reddick