Michael A. Cummings
Michael Arthur Cummings is an American visual artist and quilter. He lives in Harlem, New York.
Early life
Cummings grew up in Los Angeles, California, and earned a BA degree in American art history at Empire College. He moved to New York in the early 1970s to take a position with the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs. He worked with event planner Karin Bacon. Cummings spent his early artistic career as a part-time collage and paint artist.After a work project to create a cloth banner for an exhibition in 1973, Cummings discovered his love for working with fabric and taught himself to quilt by studying the works of local quilters and how-to quilt magazines and books.
Cummings was in a pilot program that created the Studio in a School program in the 1970s. Philanthropist Agnes Gund funded the program and visited the artists many times.
Cummings also worked at the New York State Council on the Arts for many years before retiring.
Quilting style and career
Cummings quilts in the narrative, story-telling tradition and is one of a few nationally known male quiltmakers. His work often features bright, colorful African themes and African American historical themes. Major quilt series include the "African Jazz" series, the "Haitian Mermaid" series, and the "Josephine Baker" series.The U.S. State Department has posted several of Cummings' quilts in its embassies through its Art in Embassies program. Brands such as Absolut Vodka and HBO have commissioned his work, and his work is held in the permanent collection of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, among others. Whoopi Goldberg and Bill Cosby collect Cummings' quilts.
Public collections
- Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library
- International Quilt Study Center & Museum Quilt House, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
- Museum of Art, Michigan State University
- Museum of Spirits, Stockholm, Sweden
- Brooklyn Museum, New York, New York
- Museum of Arts and Design, New York City, New York
- California African American Museum, Los Angeles, California
- Renwick Gallery Washington, D.C.
- Underground Railroad Freedom Center, Cincinnati, Ohio
Women of Color Quilters Network
Cummings is a founding member of the Women of Color Quilters Network, founded by Carolyn L. Mazloomi.Works illustrated
In the Hollow of Your Hand – collected by Alice McGill, with pictures by Michael CummingsBooks that include Cummings' quilts
Spirits of the Cloth by Carolyn Mazloomi Always There: The African American Presence in American Quilts' by Cuesta Benberry American Quiltmaking: 1970-2000 by Eleanor Levie Contemporary Quilt Art by Kate Lenkowsky Masters: Art Quilts: Major Works by Leading Artists by Martha Sielman Art Quilt Portfolio: The Natural World by Martha Sielman Tragic Soul-Life by Terrence L. Johnson - jacket coverArt Quilt Portfolio: People & Portraits by Martha Sielman Patchwork & Stitching - Australian publicationQuilts and Human Rights by Macdowell, Worrall, Swanson, and DonaldsonAwards and honors
- Cummings is a recipient of a 2023 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the United States government's highest honor in the folk and traditional arts.