Radka Donnell
| Radka Donnell | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
Radka Zagoroff November 24, 1928 Sofia, Bulgaria |
| Died | February 13, 2013 (aged 88) Zurich, Switzerland |
| Alma mater |
Stanford University, Bachelor of Arts, 1954 University of Colorado-Boulder, Master of Fine Arts |
| Known for | Art Quilts |
| Spouse(s) | Adolf Max Vogt |
Stanford University, Bachelor of Arts, 1954
Radka Donnell, (November 24, 1928 Sofia, Bulgaria – February 13, 2013 Zurich, Switzerland) was a feminist, painter, art therapist, poet, translator, storyteller, and pioneer of modern quilt-making. She explored what quilts can mean and look like, as distinct from traditional quilting and the fine arts culture.
Born in Bulgaria, Donnell’s early years were spent in Germany with her family during World War II. In 1951, she immigrated to the United States, where she obtained a Bachelor of Arts degree at Stanford University in 1954, followed by a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Donnell lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the early 1970s, where she influenced younger artists, and worked to secure and organize shows of her own and other contemporary quilters, seeking recognition for quilt artists on equal footing with those working in more recognized media.
By 1965, Donnell was using fabric as her medium. She was the first quilt artist to take a feminist stance and speak of quilts as a liberation issue. As she wrote in 1977, “Quilt making politicized me.″ In her lectures and writings, she eloquently articulated the expressive possibilities of the quilt and made a powerful case for the quilt as “an associative field of the body,” a direct link to the most primal human needs and acts. “By its original closeness to a person’s body the quilt can become an icon of personal feeling and hope."
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Wikipedia