August 2, 1943

Dayton, Ohio, United States

A review of Bertha Stenge's one woman show at the Art Institute of Chicago

The Art Institute of Chicago has opened a summer show of—of all things—patchwork quilts, and modern ones at that. Seventeen of them, hung on walls and shown in glass cases of two large galleries, they represent the past thirteen years’ work of Mrs. Bertha Stenge, a 52-year-old Chicago grandmother who got her first inspiration from a newspaper contest. “I simply decided,” she says, “that I could design better quilts than those I had seen, so 1 set about doing it.”
Her first, a bright green and rose affair on a lavender background, won no prizes, for the judges ruled that it was too gaudy. Mrs. Stenge's lawyer-husband and daugthers Prudence, Frances, and Ruth had another name for it. They called it "France's Nightmare," but it is exhibit as "Lotus."
All but two of those on display are prize winners (Mrs. Stenge has won no less than 36 awards at state fairs, Canadian National Expositions, and the New York World’s Fair). And they are all combinations of excellent design, pastel colors subtly blended on white or ivory backgrounds, and exquisite needlework that has made experts pronounce them “the finest modern quilts in the United States today.”
All double-bed size, Mrs. Stenge's quilts in fabulous detail (one contains approximately 7,500 pieces) reproduce designs she has drawn from her own personal life and environment. "Ruthie's Ring," for example, was inspired by her daughter's engagement ring and the Oriental "Star of Constantine" by a Byzantine plate she saw in a museum.
And though Mrs. Stenge is a quiet, reserved person who leaves most of the talking to her husband, she has told all about herself in “Scrapbook.” Old photographs copied with amazing accuracy report such events as her first day at school and her marriage, Portraits of her parents, brothers, and three daughters line up as if in an old family album. Flowers, a piano, and so on represent her hobbies of gardening, music, cooking, and art.
All of Mrs. Stenge’s designs are original, but some are adaptations of traditional geometric or floral patterns. The one she likes best, in fact, “Ivy’s Pincushion,” is a formalized pattern inspired by an old English print and resembling a snowflake under a microscope. With its elaborate trapunto work, this took Mrs. Stenge a year to make as against her usual six to eight months. Yet she usually spends only three hours a day on her quilting—working from 6 to 9 in the morning.
Even for lush offers Mrs. Stenge won’t sell her quilts. And in spite of urgent requests she won’t give one to the Smithsonian Institution since, in obedience to its rule forbidding display of quilts made since 1890, hers would only be folded away in a trunk.