Yvonne Wells USA, 1939

Yvonne Wells was born in 1939 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama where she continues to live and work. She is known for her intricate narrative 'story quilts' rendered in a personal style that uniquely melds geometric abstraction with bold figuration.

Her work has been featured in solo exhibitions at Carnegie Visual Arts Center (Decatur, AL); the International Quilt Museum (Lincoln, NE); and the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts (Montgomery, AL). Her work has been featured in group exhibitions at Birmingham Museum of Art (Birmingham, AL); Carnegie Visual Arts Center (Decatur, AL); FLAG Art Foundation (New York, NY); Gadsden Museum of Art (Gadsden, AL); International Quilt Museum (Lincoln, NE); Louisville Visual Art Association (Louisville, KY); Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts (Montgomery, AL); and the Wiregrass Museum of Art (Dothan, AL). Wells has also exhibited her art internationally in Vence, France, Pietrasanta, Italy, and Tokyo, Japan. Her work is included in the permanent collections of Arkansas Museum of Fine Arts, Little Rock, AR; Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL; Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, MI; Henry Ford Museum, Dearborn, MI; International Quilt Museum, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, NE; Kentuck Art Center, Northport, AL; Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL; Montgomery Museum of Fine Art, Montgomery, AL; Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington D.C.; The Bunker, West Palm Beach, FL, Wiregrass Museum of Art, Dothan, AL; and Weisman Art Museum, Minneapolis, MN. Wells is the recipient of the 2019 Governor’s Arts Award from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the 1998 Alabama Arts and Visual Craftsmen Award. In 2023, Fort Gansevoort presented Wells’ first New York solo exhibition: 'Play The Hand That’s Dealt You'. A the forthcoming monograph 'The Story Quilts' of Yvonne Well will be published by University of Alabama Press in September 2024.