NEW YORK, September 16, 2025 – The American Folk Art Museum announced today a major gift of $100,000 from philanthropist and patron Fleur S. Bresler in support of the Museum’s forthcoming exhibition, An Ecology of Quilts: The Natural History of American Textiles (September 26, 2025 – March 1, 2026).
Bresler is renowned as a champion of American art and contemporary craft, who has long supported the American Folk Art Museum through personal gifts as well as contributions from The Bresler Foundation. Dedicated to preserving and promoting American art and craft, Bresler built an exceptional personal collection spanning a diverse range of forms and media that is informed by her intellectual curiosity and her commitment to supporting living artists.
Though Bresler’s collection is noted for its breadth and variety, quilts have long been a defining personal passion for her as she began collecting and pursuing art as an area of interest in the 1960s. Bresler quickly devoted herself to learning all about quilts, immersing herself in their history and the intricacies of the form. She even served as a quilt docent for the Smithsonian system in Washington D.C. In the decades since, Bresler built an exceptional collection of historically significant and modern quilts, 30 spectacular examples of which were given to the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, North Carolina, and were shown at the Bellevue Art Museum in Washington.
Since 2019, Bresler has generously provided funding for several major quilt exhibitions at the American Folk Art Museum, beginning with WALL POWER! Spectacular Quilts from the American Folk Art Museum (2019), and its national tour to The Hyde Collection in Glens Falls, New York; the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers, New York; and the Susquehanna Art Museum in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The tour of the exhibition concludes in 2026 at the Dayton Art Institute in Ohio.
Bresler’s generosity further supported Year of the Quilt (2019), which was on view at AFAM’s Self-Taught Genius Gallery in Long Island City, Queens; Multitudes (2021), an expansive collection-based exhibition that celebrated the Museum’s 60th anniversary and featured 400 works of art; and What That Quilt Knows About Me (2023), a major exhibition of quilts that The New York Times named to their Best Art of 2023 list. Bresler also provided critical funding in support of reprinting the exhibition catalog for Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red & White Quilts in 2023. The landmark publication commemorated one of AFAM’s most celebrated exhibitions, which dramatically transformed the Park Avenue Armory with the installation of 650 red and white American quilts, all of which were on loan from the collection of Joanna S. Rose. When the exhibition opened in 2011, it was the largest exhibition of quilts ever staged in New York City.
As the first exhibition to inaugurate the new American Folk Art Museum, following a planned closure over the past several months for the most significant renovations at the Museum’s home in Manhattan’s Lincoln Square in more than 30 years, Bresler’s support for An Ecology of Quilts is further testament to the importance of quilts as a foundational component of the Museum’s collection and a growing center of scholarship. Her longstanding support of quilts at the American Folk Art Museum underscores the importance and significance of quilting as a global artform that continues to evolve today.
In addition to her support of the American Folk Art Museum, Bresler’s philanthropy also includes significant gifts of artworks to other nationally-recognized institutions, such as the Mint Museum in Charlotte, North Carolina, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Renwick Gallery.
Jason T. Busch, AFAM’s Becky and Bob Alexander Director & CEO, commented on the gift: “I have had the privilege of knowing Fleur for nearly 20 years, beginning when I was a curator at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh. Since we first met, I have always been inspired by her astute knowledge of quilting and contemporary craft. As a stalwart advocate for living artists, Fleur’s commitment to artists dovetails with the spirit of AFAM’s collection and our ongoing accessions of living artists from around the world. In the seven years since I joined AFAM in 2018, she has provided magnanimous support for a variety of exhibitions and initiatives at the Museum, including an unwavering commitment to quilts. As she celebrates 99 years young this month, we are so excited to once again have Fleur’s support for such a groundbreaking exhibition of quilting history.”
Fleur S. Bresler remarked: “Quilts have long held a special place in my heart. I am endlessly fascinated by their variety and diversity of expression – and the stories they tell of their creators. The American Folk Art Museum’s collection of quilts is among the most comprehensive and important of institutions in the United States, and I am proud to continue my support of the Museum’s ongoing efforts to showcase the artistic significance of this unique artform.”
About the American Folk Art Museum
Founded in 1961, the American Folk Art Museum is a global leader dedicated to the preservation and promotion of folk and self-taught art across time and place. Candid, genuine, and unexpected, the Museum celebrates the creativity of individuals whose singular talents have been refined largely through personal experience rather than formal artistic training. With a collection spanning 8,000 works of art from four centuries and nearly every continent, the American Folk Art Museum engages people of all backgrounds through its collections, exhibitions, publications, and public programs as the leading forum shaping the understanding and appreciation of folk and self-taught art. Thanks to the generous support of our members, patrons, and donors, admission to the Museum is always free. In 2025, AFAM was voted #1 in Newsweek’s Best Art Museum readers’ choice poll.