Cuesta Benberry, 83, one of the nation’s foremost quilt scholars, died of congestive heart failure Aug. 23 at Forest Park Hospital.
Mrs. Benberry’s research was so fundamental that “in nearly every quilt book today, Cuesta Benberry will be quoted in the text or her name will appear in the bibliography,” the Quilters Hall of Fame noted when she was inducted in 1983.
“She began to look very seriously at all the aspects of quiltmaking at a time when people weren’t looking at quilts, much less the history of quilts,” said Bettina Havig, a quilt historian from Columbia, Mo.
Mrs. Benberry became interested in the art and craft when her mother-in-law gave her a quilt. When she visited her in-laws, who lived in Kentucky, she began to learn about the pride that women took in that work.
“I think we get so emotional about quilts because they’re such an integral part of many people’s lives,” Mrs. Benberry told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette in 1998. “They’re on the bed. They’re there at birth. They’re there at death. They’re part of the marriage bed. They’re part of our lives, and they give us so many memories.”
Xenia Cord of Kokomo, Ind., president of the American Quilt Study Group, said, “She was a serious scholar at a time when the kinds of conveniences we take for granted – digital photography, copying machines, e-mail – weren’t possible. She did the difficult research.
“She also inspired innumerable people to research. She was unfailingly generous with her support and with her mentoring.”
Born in Cincinnati and raised in St. Louis, Mrs. Benberry graduated from what is now Harris-Stowe State University. She received a master’s degree in library science from the University of Missouri at St. Louis. She worked in St. Louis Public Schools for 40 years and retired in 1985.
She organized a traveling quilt show for the Kentucky Quilt Project of Louisville, which demonstrated the breadth of quilts by African Americans. The exhibit appeared in 1993 at the Anacostia museum in Southeast Washington.
“African-American quilt makers’ backgrounds, living conditions, needs, access to materials, aesthetic sensibilities, creative impulses and technical skills were vastly divergent,” Mrs. Benberry wrote in the exhibit brochure.
Mrs. Benberry was a founder of the American Quilt Study Group and was honored by the American Folk Art Museum in New York in 2004.
In addition to organizing exhibitions, Mrs. Benberry wrote four books: “Always There: The African-American Presence in American Quilts” (1992), “Patchwork of Pieces: An Anthology of Early Quilt Stories, 1845-1940” (1993), “Piece of My Soul: Quilts by Black Arkansans” (2000) and “Love of Quilts: A Treasury of Classic Quilting Stories” (2004).
The only quilt Mrs. Benberry made, a sampler, also reflects her research: It is composed of blocks that appeared in earlier African American quilts.
Survivors include her husband of 56 years, George L. Benberry; her son, George V. Benberry; two grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.