It is said to include – among the other irreplaceable treasures – several Australian wartime quilts. Made by Australian soldiers who were captured or held in camps or were stitched when they returned to Australia, they cut up their uniforms to create a vivid memory for themselves or to give to their loved ones and families at home.
The unique collection contains quilts made by soldiers. sailors and regimental tailors over 300 years , in the Prussian, Napoleonic and Crimean wars, and in British India.
Supplied information states Dr Gero classes her collection in two groups: those commissioned and made for important people and those made by soldiers during World Wars I and II.
Her recent research on the first group has revealed a fascinating link to paintings and etchings: many of the quilts were bespoke commissions for prominent notables of their day and were deliberate copies of famous works of art. They are elaborate pictorial panels using the compositions of popular etchings and paintings as templates.
The second group made by soldiers was an accidental discovery through a phone call informing Dr Gero of a quilt pictured in the Gympie Times,Queensland , featuring a double-headed eagle. “This made me aware”, she said, “that immigrants had bought extraordinary old quilts from their homeland when they came to Australia, the double-headed eagle representing so much of Europe during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. And of course, other quilts reside here from British wars as well…”
A second one turned up at Christie’s in London at auction. Dr Gero expected to bid against every museum in the world. However, she was the only bidder. At that time no one really understood what these war quilts made from military fabrics were.
Accompanying the exhibition is Dr Gero’s catalogue, Wartime Quilts: Appliqués and Geometric Masterpieces from Military Fabrics. This richly illustrated book was reviewed by the New York Times as one of the best art and design publications of 2023 and is available at the Gallery Shop.
(War. Quilts. Cairns. )
